#'the scowl on your face could frighten a troll.' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

songfell-ut · 4 years

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Chapter 15 took forever ergh

Man, this was a thing. In this thing, Sans cannot do poker face, and Undyne is half bro and half troll. Chapter can be found here.

Frisk wiped the sweat from her forehead and clutched the envelope tighter as she crept over the last "bridge." The monsters in Hotland were supposed to have disarmed all the traps and puzzles for the humans’ visit, but they had replaced them with a bunch of regular wooden planks, not bothering with supports or railings to keep people from falling into the lava.

There! She was across. Puffing a little in the heat, Frisk trotted up the ramp and saw the doctor’s laboratory – helpfully labeled “LAB” – right where they’d said it would be.

But no one had said there would be a crowd blocking it. “…your very eyes!” someone was shouting from a stage in the main area.

It wasn’t very impressive, just a rickety platform with one corner curtained off and a few musicians standing around. The only thing on it was a giant metal rectangle that rocked back and forth on a single wheel, with no human features except for strange, floppy arms ending in white gloves. Yellow and red lights twinkled in elaborate patterns on its front as it raised an arm and twirled in place. “No, you say? It’s not enough?” asked a tinny voice.

Frisk had no idea what it was supposed to be – some kind of loud statue? – and neither did the rest of the audience. The rectangle spun itself impatiently. “Well, then, behold!”

Just like that, the thing froze in place, and there was nervous laughter as it began to look like it was broken—until something darted out from behind the curtain and whacked it in the back. There came a POP and a grinding sound, and the rectangle exploded in a plume of smoke!

But before the audience could work up to a proper state of panic, they heard a silvery laugh. Out of the smoke stepped a dazzling figure; it was shaped like a human, but as the air cleared, the stagelights shone on a monster made entirely of bronze and steel, its features delineated in ivory. Sleek black lacquer served as hair, and it winked an opalescent eye at the gawking crowd. When they didn't get the hint, it raised its hands and tapped them together, then bowed graciously as the applause started in earnest.

This must be the automaton she’d been sent to find! Somehow, Frisk doubted she was supposed to get up on stage to give him the note; if she was, the answer was—

“Yes!” At that cue, the musicians broke into a swift-paced dance tune. Mettaton bowed again, then launched himself into a series of amazing leaps and twirls, hopping around the little stage like an agile, attention-fueled clockwork toy. The audience cheered and clapped along, which seemed to put an extra spring in his step, as Sans would say.

Frisk had crept closer and spotted a set of steps beside the stage. She started up them on all fours, hoping to catch Mettaton after this song. A Royal Guard moved to stop her; Frisk showed her the fancy seal on the note she was carrying under her armpit, and the cat-woman directed her to go up and wait behind the curtain.

The human did so, and immediately bumped into someone. “E-excuse me,” another monster said apologetically. Frisk turned to see a stocky lizard monster with bright yellow scales, wearing glasses and a doctor’s coat; she offered a sheepish smile as the human child backed up. “I’m just here to m-make sure M-M-Mettaton doesn’t s-squeak too much,” the doctor said, holding up an oil can. "I hope he s-stops after this number so I can—"

The audience was applauding again, and the lizard gulped as Mettaton launched right into another routine, the musicians scrambling to keep up. Frisk couldn't help poking her head out from the curtain; she had never seen anything like the automaton, especially not this close.

"I'm so g-g-glad that I finished him on time," the yellow monster said quietly, as if to herself.

"You made him?" the child whispered back in astonishment.

The monster looked a little frightened, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. "Um...just his b-b-body." She shuffled her feet. "It w-was nothing."

Frisk watched the automaton do a series of backflips ending in perfect splits. "That looks like a lot. It's incredible," she said honestly.

"Really?" The lizard squinted at her to see if she meant it. "W-Well, if you think so..."

Out of nowhere, Frisk felt a cold sensation sliding down her back. The same way one has to sniff at something that looks rotten, the child had to peek out at the audience: sure enough, there was Chara at the back of the crowd, frowning up at the stage.

As Frisk stared, the woman's gaze shifted until her eyes met Frisk's. Chara smiled thinly, and the child's gut knotted. How did—

Another grinding sound pulled Frisk's attention back to the stage. Mettaton’s ankles were starting to smoke as he moved faster and faster; to Frisk's horror, one of the joints locked up, and the automaton's heeled boot skidded across the stage, lurching him off balance. The little human had a panicky mental image of the poor monster lying in a heap, people trying not to laugh too loud, Chara rushing up to help because everyone was watching...

Maybe that was what gave Frisk the courage to drop the envelope and dash onto the stage as Mettaton came careening toward her. She grabbed the nearest pearly-gloved hand and swung him around with all her might, nearly wrenching her shoulder out of its socket.

But it was enough: the automaton slammed his knee and his other hand into the stage and used the momentum to twirl back onto his feet...all in time with the music. The child didn’t have time to catch her breath; Mettaton winked at her with a little clicking sound and then caught her up to dance in place with him, setting her down long enough to let her pose dramatically.

The first time she did it was just freezing up as she faced the audience, but they cheered so loudly that she tried it again the next time she came down, and the next. To her amazement, she wasn’t embarrassed anymore. This was fun!

All too soon, the song ended with a crashing flourish, and she panted happily as Mettaton held her arm up, prompting the now-huge crowd to applaud both of them. The automaton turned to address everyone, but Frisk was glad to stagger back to the side of the stage, where the lizard monster was waiting behind the curtain. “Th-thank you so much,” she said. Despite her scales, she appeared to be sweating, beady eyes fixed on Mettaton. "He's g-going to be s-so upset with me..."

Frisk hated how miserable the doctor looked, as if she expected the automaton to blame her for the mishap because it was her fault. The human tried to think of something to say, and spotted the note in the monster's hand. “Oh, you found it! Thank you!” Frisk cried, as if her life had been saved, and was rewarded with a shy smile as the lizard handed her the envelope. “Here, sir. This is for you,” said Frisk, turning to Mettaton as he came over.

Sure enough, he was scowling. "I was just telling the doctor how amazing you were," the child said as gushily as possible. "But, um, you're so amazing that we're worried about you pushing yourself too hard. Please take more care so you can keep performing for us," Frisk finished.

The automaton blinked, his attention diverted. “Why, thank you, darling,” he said, ruffling her hair fairly gently, “and thank you for your assistance! That was marvelous! Any time you’d like to come back for another performance, my little beauty, you are absolutely welcome.” He gave Alphys a brief glare, then allowed her to creep forward and begin re-oiling his joints as he tore the note open, eyes flicking over the words with inhuman speed. “Ah, duty calls.” The metal monster smiled at Frisk again, working his ankles to spread the oil evenly. “I’m heading to meet His Majesty now. Would you like to come back with me, darling?”

“Thank you, sir, but I promised the Queen I’d stay and meet more people in Hotland,” Frisk lied. She turned to the other monster and gave a half-bow. “My name is, um, Kris. What’s yours?”

“Uh…m-my n-name?” The lizard pushed up her glasses. “I-I’m Dr. Alphys, the r-royal s-s-scientist. It’s n-nice to m-meet you, Kris.”

“I’ll see you later, then, Kris!” Without further ado, Mettaton stepped out of the curtain and leapt off the stage, sailing clear over the astonished humans’ heads and pirouetting once more before he pranced out of sight.

“Um…” Alphys was fidgeting with her claws. “So, d-do you like…stories? Novels or p-p-plays?”

“I don’t know,” said Frisk, rubbing her sore shoulder. “I’ve never read any.”

Alphys’ eyes got wide, and wider. “C-c-c’mon!” she nearly shrieked. “Do I have s-some things to sh-show you!” And she was off, racing down the steps and tearing the doors to her laboratory open as though her tail had caught fire.

Frisk started to follow, but another bad feeling crept up on her, and she had to turn to look at the audience, praying she wouldn’t see—

Chara was still there, still staring at Frisk. But this time, she wasn't smiling. She looked...thoughtful.

Why did that seem so much worse?

Sans lay on the floor in his room, flat on his back, his head spinning. For a long moment, he had no idea what'd just happened. He'd woken up and had to get away in a hurry—from Undyne? Because he'd been chewing on Frisk? That was a dream...right?

But if it was a dream, what was he smelling? The boss monster glanced this way and that. All he saw was his pile of long-outgrown socks, his too-small treadmill shoved against the wall, and the wadded-up sheets on the kiddy-sized bed. Sans grunted and turned onto his side, curling up with one arm under his head.

Then he blinked, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and jammed it into his nasal bone, inhaling so deeply that he almost sucked the material up into his skull. Ha! Frisk's scent was all over him! It wasn't a dream after all. Heh, as if he could've imagined her saying those things, making those little noises and tasting like—

Sans tried to leap to his feet, but he made it about a third of the way before he staggered and fell back with a butt-rattling thump. No good; he'd done too much yesterday and gotten too little sleep. That last shortcut had completely drained him.

It was just as well, when Sans gave it any thought whatsoever. He'd gotten out of Frisk's room fast enough that she had a decent chance of convincing Undyne he hadn't been there. It'd be about eight flavors of stupid to go back to her now, no matter how badly he wanted to.

And boy howdy, did he ever want to. The giant skeleton stared at the ceiling, fighting the urge to rub his face in his shirt like a damn cat. His tongue came up and ran slowly across the back of his teeth, remembering the taste of apples—she must've had some before she went to bed. He'd never be able to eat one again without getting twitchy.

In fact, he had a feeling that life was going to be trickier in general from now on. Being around her had been distracting enough before he knew exactly how soft she was, what it smelled like snuggled into her neck...

Shit. No wonder humans were such obsessive morons about this whole thing. Magic was already tingling throughout his bones, especially his pelvis, a helpful reminder that it was there in case he wanted to have his way with anyone; Sans had to bring his fist up and clonk himself square in the forehead to snap out of it.

...And it didn't even work. The harder he tried not to think of Frisk, the more irritated he got, and he also had a headache.

It was a profound relief to feel the house shake as the front door was thrown open. Undyne shouted something, and Pap's door also banged open; Sans had to smile as his brother loudly rejoiced at seeing Frisk. Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and a moment later, Frisk shrieked with laughter—probably because Pap had picked her up and swung her around, just as he had swung Kris around all those years ago.

Sans sighed. The stairs were too small for him, and he wasn't sure he could manage a shortcut to the living room. Maybe it was just as well: he was tired and cranky, and he hadn't calmed down enough to trust himself yet; better give her some time to get reacquainted with Pap first, before they started handing out everyone's gifts.

Oh, crap. She'd asked him to do something last night with the wagons, but he'd been too distracted by the other stuff she'd said, and too intent on proving that he could do stuff, too. He had spent the past couple days thinking it over while he was pulling the stupid wagon, theorizing that he could cram some of his accumulated magic back down and revert to a lesser height for short periods; listening to Frisk whistle, he'd wondered if he could do that, too, and then gone off a long mental tangent about lips.

Maybe those self-adjustments had worked so readily because he'd had so much practice manipulating his other body parts, or maybe he'd just wanted it to happen badly enough. Maintaining his crammed-down form was something he'd have to work on, and he didn't know if he'd be able to do it at all outside the Underground and its ambient magic, but...

He closed his eyes, letting his body relax, ignoring Undyne's stupid loud voice through the floor. He was home, his brother was happy, they had Frisk here...

Some time later – a few minutes, or an hour – he jumped as the door banged shut downstairs. The boss monster wondered irritably if someone else had come in, or if they'd left, or what. Then, picking up at a random point where his mind had left off, he wondered whether his body felt as awful to Frisk as hers felt good to him. Was it like making out with a coat rack?

The only thing that saved him from another five or six hours of tortured introspection was the smell of pancakes. Sans shook himself, sat up, thought of the living room, and took himself downstairs, where he was met with...no one. To his disappointment, the house was now empty, save for a single plate and a note on the table:

SANS! YOUR GREAT BROTHER (ME) HAS KINDLY AGREED TO ALLOW YOU TO SLEEP IN LIKE THE SLOTHFUL SACK OF BONES YOU ARE WHILE WE ESCORT OUR DEAR

Another set of handwriting, much less elegant and more emphatic, had scribbled out KRIS so hard that the paper was almost torn through, replacing it neatly with Frisk.

FINE THEN OUR DEAR FRISK TO GRILLBY'S AS A CONVENIENT PLACE FROM WHICH TO FURTHER DISTRIBUTE PANCAKES. PLEASE PARTAKE OF THE DELICIOUS BREAKFAST PREPARED WITH LOVE BY YOUR BROTHER, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AND CONSIDER JOINING U

There was a trailed-off line where the S should have began, and a smear of ink as testament to a struggle for the pen before the other handwriting victoriously resumed,

We're at Grillby's!!! (Much smaller:) see was that so hard

NO ONE SAID IT WAS HARD, NYEH!! I WAS MERELY TRYING TO CONVE (smear)

Why are you actually writing NYEH you damn goober

WHY ARE YOU NOT

oh my god (Much bigger:) SANS EAT YOUR PANCAKES

Sigh. Sans obediently picked up a fork, then realized no one was around, folded the stack in half, and shoved it down his throat. He remembered another time with a fork and breakfast being crammed in his face; little did he know then...

With his mouth still full, Sans abruptly stood up and gathered himself for to a shortcut to Grillby's—only for his magic to sputter and fizzle out. Dammit! Had he only gotten enough back to teleport into the living room?

Well, Grillby's might not be very far, but after the past couple days, he was completely sick of walking. He could just wait a few more minutes for his magic to regenerate. It wasn't like he'd die if he didn't see her right this second. Right?

He glanced at the fork again.

A moment later, he was closing the front door behind him, shuffling through the snow with his hands in his pockets.

To his surprise, one of the wagons was parked outside the house, most of its contents sitting on the ground. Aaron and Ice Wolf were busy moving packages into the shed; the only things left in the wagon were the crates of vials, seedlings, and other items for Alphys. Sans caught Aaron's eye, and the merhorse flexed nervously at him before returning to work.

Hm. Toriel must've told them to bring the wagons to Frisk in Snowdin, and then Undyne had gotten Pap to unlock the shed and made these guys unload all the gifts. Nice! That was one less thing to worry about.

Ice Wolf was setting down one of the last packages and climbing back into the wagon. Sans watched in sudden apprehension as the wolf pulled out a crate and trotted down toward the river, raising it over his head to—

It really wasn't Ice Wolf's fault. Apparently, he'd heard Frisk tell Undyne that the crates were all accounted for, and now they needed to go to Hotland; it was already his job to send things there by throwing them into the water, so he figured he might as well help with these, too. One flying tackle and a heated discussion later about the difference between chunks of ice and irreplaceable scientific materials, the wolf monster was directed to the Royal Guards' ferry, which could transport the crates without anything getting waterlogged or melted.

Okay. That was one wagon safely disposed of. Time to follow the other one's tracks in the snow past the deserted librarby – heh, he'd never get tired of that – to Grillby's.

Sure enough, the other wagon stood empty right outside the bar, which was absolutely packed. Sans could smell why: for the first time in months, Grillby was serving hot food. If Sans knew Frisk, no one would have to pay for it, either.

Free pancakes or not, things were quite orderly. The monsters were waiting in a line stretching out the door and along the side of the building; the Royal Guard Captain could be heard directing traffic inside, and those without were politely ignoring Papyrus as he strode back and forth, instructing them to keep waiting. "SANS! THERE YOU ARE!" he said, cheerful as always. "IT'S GOOD TO SEE YOU, NYEHH! I WASN'T SURE IF THE HUMAN IN MY HEAD WAS ENTIRELY TRUSTWORTHY, BUT IT SEEMS SHE WAS CORRECT AFTER ALL! I'M SO GLAD THAT YOU ARE BACK SAFELY!"

"Yeah, I'm here," answered Sans, giving his brother a friendly nudge in passing. "An' speakin' of the human—"

"AH-AH, BROTHER!" Papyrus flung his hands out to block the doorway. "YOU MUST WAIT WITH EVERYONE ELSE."

Sans stared down at him. "What the crap, bro? I already ate. I just wanna get in ta—"

"IT IS A DIRECT ORDER FROM UNDYNE! NO EXCEPTIONS!"

"Well, you're bein' exceptionally dumb!" He tried to stoop to see in the door, but to no avail: there was no room between the monsters in line and those leaving. "Come on, Pap! All I want is—"

A red-gloved finger stabbed up at him. "BACK IN LINE, SANS! NYEH-HEH-HEH!"

And just like that, for one second, Sans was so irritated that he wanted to pick his brother up by the spine and toss him aside. It took far too long to remind himself that he loved Papyrus more than life itself, his brother was just being himself, and Sans shouldn't pick him up by the friggin' spine! What was wrong with him today?

Sans shook himself, pulled a face, and started ambling toward the end of the line. The moment Pap's attention was elsewhere, though, the boss monster turned on his heel, speed-sneaked up to the doorway, tapped on a couple of shoulders, and said, "'Scuse me."

Somehow, no one else seemed concerned that he was cutting in line. A duck, a wriggle and a side-shuffle later, Sans was in the bar, ignoring his brother's orders to come back that instant!

There were so many monsters inside that they'd had to shove the rectangular tables against the wall. Undyne was seated at the high table near the back door, keeping her eye on the line as it moved toward the bar; Grillby had set up a griddle and was silently dispensing one pancake and one blob of hash browns to each monster—not much, but it was still human food, equivalent to a couple of good-sized meals. The stools at the end of the bar were laden with plates, forks, and napkins, but almost everyone was ignoring them and devouring their food on the spot.

Where the hell was Frisk? Even at Sans' height, it took him a moment to locate her. But someone finally moved aside, and his SOUL leapt like an excited little dog at the sight of its favorite human. She was perched on a corner of the bar, tiny feet swinging, wearing her black cloak and a high-necked gown; an intrepid kid had wormed his way into her lap, and Frisk was petting his seahorse-shaped head as she listened to old Gerson. She said something that made the elderly tortoise chortle and whap the bar with his stick, and Sans tried to edge forward.

"Hey!" barked Undyne. The entire place fell quiet as the Captain got down from her chair and stalked over to Sans. "You shouldn't be in here," she scolded him. "Does this look like a good place to just hang out right now? Huh?"

The boss monster ignored her and glared at Gerson, who was occupying both barstools at that corner. Then he looked at Frisk, who was smiling at him, and he immediately forgot what he was mad about. He tried to think of something witty: "Uh." Shuffle. "Hi."

"Ugh! I know the note said we'd be here, but I didn't mean for you to come right in and—are you listening?!" The fish monster had to sock him in the radius to get his attention. "Look, doofus, if you're gonna take up space, do it over there!" She pointed at the gramophone in the corner.

Sans obediently trudged through the press of monsters and stationed himself near Frisk. Undyne followed him, nodding respectfully to Gerson. "So, boss. How was it, living in the lair of the enemy?" the Captain inquired, leaning against the bar. When he looked blank, she prompted, "How'd the humans treat you?"

Why was she asking this now, and what was that look she was giving him? ...Oh, fuck, that was right. She might have seen him on the floor in Frisk's room before he shortcut away, and was fishing for information. Ha. He didn't know whether Frisk had successfully denied it or not; better err on the side of being dickish about humans. "It sucked. They're dumb, they smell weird, an' they all stared at me like a friggin' zoo animal," he complained.

Frisk shifted to look at him, and he quailed at her expression. "Excuse me," she said coldly. "Are you going to mention that you had your own room with a bed even bigger than you are, or how much food you had brought straight to you every single day? All you had to do in return was read and put things in bottles!"

"Seriously?" Undyne punched one fist into her other hand. "Didn't you have to fight for your life against terrible odds, or steel your resolve and withstand all kinds of torture, or something?"

"It was a feather bed with silk sheets," said Frisk, and Undyne made a retching sound.

"Wah ha ha!" Gerson thumped the bar again. "If you ever need another apprentice, girlie, sign me up! Won't hear me complainin'!"

"Me neither," said the kid on Frisk's lap. To Sans' absolute disgust, the seahorse's curved head was snugged up under her bosom, the cloak tucked in like a blanket. Her hood was down, and in the bar's overhead lights, he was reminded of that fateful moment where he'd seen her clearly for the first time, the delicate symmetry of her features and the beautiful red tones in her eyes...

Sans didn't realize he was staring until Undyne coughed. "So all humans are gross and dumb, huh?" She scratched behind her right fin. "Well, if you had to get stuck with one, at least you wound up with Frisk. I mean, she's not that bad, right?"

"Uh..." Fuckin' Undyne! Was she being sarcastic, or actually trying to figure out how he felt? If so, should he try to convince her that he wasn't interested in Frisk, or at least that he wasn't completely batshit in love with her?

...Crap. They were waiting for the next batch of pancakes to finish cooking, so the line had stalled, and now a bunch of other monsters were listening. All it would take was one idiot gossiping about Sans' interspecies love affair for it to get back to Asgore, who would lose what was left of his big dumb mind. Sans had to throw them off...but what could he even say?

Double crap. He made the mistake of looking at Frisk, who had picked up a fork from the bar and—god damn it, she was looking back at him and tapping it against her lips! As if he needed a reminder that she was still stunningly beautiful, or to think more about kissing her. The seahorse was now asleep on her lap, completing the picture of a woman he couldn't hate any less.

Sans gave himself a mental kick in the nuts: he had to say something before someone noticed him ogling her. "Well...it...coulda been worse," he said, turning his head dismissively, "but you should see what she does t'books. She folds the pages up like a damn kid!"

"Oh, yes, I just loved having a ten-foot mother-in-law telling me what I could do with my own things," the human shot back. She turned to address the snickering monsters: "Not only did he get literally one hundred eighty square feet of bed to himself while I slept on the couch like a vagrant, he spent an hour in the tub every single night. I kept having to bang on the door and wake him up! And he has the nerve to complain about how I treated my books?"

The snickering increased as Sans' skull grew warm. Was she playing along, or was she actually mad? Why didn't anything make sense anymore?! "Yeah, well, you snore" was all he could think to say.

With unnerving speed, Gerson swung his stick up and around till it was pointing at Sans' sternum. "And how do you know that, sonny boy?" he demanded.

That was a good question, and the others were eagerly awaiting his response. Sans didn't have the guts – ha – to look at Frisk, so he just shrugged. "I could hear it through two closed doors," he said casually.

Their listeners chuckled, clearly buying it, but Undyne grinned wider. "Good thing he doesn't like humans. You never had to worry about him trying anything weird," she said loudly to Frisk, who was covering her face with one hand. The Captain glanced back at Sans. "Right? 'Cause you don't like humans?"

"Right," said the boss monster. Just in case, he added, "'m not interested. They're too...uh...lumpy."

"Lumpy?" Undyne repeated, voice cracking.

"Lumpy," Frisk mumbled into her hand, and Sans bade a silent farewell to his chances of making it through the day alive.

Gerson snorted. "Never you mind him, girl. I remember when you were even smaller, and you flirted with every monster you met—why doncha try it again? Promise I won't laugh this time!"

The human raised her head long enough to say, "No, sir, but I think you'd fall asleep before we got anywhere interesting," and the monsters roared with laughter, all except Sans.

"That's a fair point," Gerson admitted, once he'd recovered. "A doll like you shouldn't be stuck with a stinky old thing like me. Maybe one of these other fine specimens of monsterhood would suit ya better?"

"Yeah, I'm a fine specimen!" someone called out, prompting more laughter, and cries of "Me too!" and "I'm not, but I'll learn!"

"I don't think so," Undyne said flatly, to Sans' eternal gratitude. "Frisk has a lot of work to do, and she's not gonna be here that long. Anyone who messes with her on my watch is gonna be my new training dummy. Got it?"

"Agreed," the giant skeleton muttered. "Don't want anybody interruptin' her bein' a perfect princess an' fixin' all the world's pr—"

Tng went Frisk's palm on the bar, slamming the fork down and nearly startling Gerson onto the floor. "Don't call me that!"

A moment of apprehensive silence, and then the line began moving again, the monsters whispering to each other and glancing over their shoulders. Well, it'd definitely worked, Sans thought, trying to get his SOUL moving again. No one would think anything was going on between them now. ...How was that little shit still asleep on her?

"Okay, okay," said Undyne, chagrined. "Geez. You're one to talk, boss."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Frisk asked suspiciously, saving him the trouble.

Gerson gave three rapid thumps on the floor. "Very true, Miss Undyne! Very true. Here's an interesting fact for ya," he said to the priestess. "When it comes to sowin' their oats, your average monster's not in any hurry, but bosses? They're almost as determined as humans! Wah ha ha!"

Frisk smiled weakly. "Ahh, I'm just funnin' with you. Don't worry about Sans," Gerson assured her. "Most folks don't know this, but romantically speaking, boss monsters ain't much of a threat to anyone. Sure, they've got that drive to have offspring, but they're too picky to do much about it." He waggled his stick in Sans' direction. "This fella's SOUL ain't interested in anybody weaker than he is. If he can't find another boss monster, he won't fix on anyone at all."

Sans' mouth fell open, and clicked shut. "Wait. What?"

The old tortoise cackled again. "Haven't you noticed, sonny?" he asked. "You're not interested in the ladies – or gents – 'cause none of 'em have enough magic to handle ya. Your SOUL can tell when you meet someone who might work out, and it ignores everybody else. It's instinct—keeps you from hurting a lesser monster by mistake. 'Course, the royals have each other, or at least they did, but..." His shrug was eloquent, almost pitying. "Not sure what to tell you, young skeleton. Hope you find a way to scratch that itch someday."

"Are you serious? How do you know that? Why the hell didn't I know that?!" Sans was too angry to notice how red Frisk was, or how wide Undyne's eye had gotten. "D'ya know how much I've been worryin' about what'd happen if I—" He caught himself just in time. "—got really interested in someone? Yer tellin' me that just bein' interested means it's safe ta go for it?"

"Wah ha! It sure would!" Thump thump. "Ya really didn’t know that? Didn't you get 'the talk' from Asgore or Toriel?"

Sans shook his head. He'd never talked to the King about personal stuff, and Toriel knew how much he hated being a boss monster, so she hadn't brought it up. She certainly never told him what to expect if he did find a potential mate. Sans couldn't really blame her; how was she supposed to know he'd meet someone like Frisk?

Gerson harrumphed at him. "Well, some of us remember how the King and Queen were before the Prince was born—couldn't keep their hands off each other! I had to have a talk with 'em about corrupting our youth with their bad example, and Asgore went on and on about how their SOULs couldn't help it! Poor Toriel wouldn't look me in the eye for a month afterwards!" He cackled yet again. "Not the sort of thing I'd go around repeating to just anyone, is it?"

"Yeah, well, I wish you'd repeated it to me!"

"How fascinating," said Frisk, tilting her head to feign curiosity. That wasn't fair: he knew she was faking, and it was still the cutest damn thing he'd ever seen. "So I don't have to worry about Sans bothering me?" she asked innocently.

"Not unless you're a boss monster, too!" The tortoise had a hearty chuckle at that idea.

No one really joined in, especially not Sans, who was remembering his own words to Alphys. "If humans had anythin' like boss monsters, she'd be one fer sure"...

Suddenly, the little seahorse on Frisk's lap jerked awake, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with one long, hand-like fin. "Good morning," the priestess said kindly.

He yawned a weird little yawn, and mumbled, "Good morning, Princess."

Frisk stiffened. Sans resisted the urge to tie the kid in a knot as the human said, "No, dear. When Sans called me that, he was being sarcastic," with an inflection that made the skeleton wince. "I'm not actually a princess."

Blink. "Oh." Blink. "I don't get it. Aren't you Chara? You were here before, and Lady Toriel said—oww!"

Gerson had rapped the seahorse between the ears with his stick. "Pay attention, sprout," he said severely. "Chara died before you were even hatched. This here is Miss Frisk, you got that?"

The little monster mumbled an apology, ears drooping. Grillby saved them all from further awkwardness by moving over and crackling something at Gerson, who nodded and leaned over to whisper to Undyne, who stood up in turn and stomped the floor for everyone's attention. "Two dozen pancakes left, and we're out of hash browns!" she called out. "Everyone who hasn't gotten theirs yet, count off! One! Two! Three—"

Groaning arose as "Four," "Five," "Six" came down from the head of the line, ending in a triumphant "Twenty-four!" near the door.

"What the hell," complained the twenty-fifth monster. "I didn't come all the way from Waterfall to get screwed again!"

"You shouldn't have come to eat our food in the first place," Dogamy snapped.

"Everyone was already lining up, and I was all the way at the back! So I came to get something for the kids—"

"Well, you should've thought of that before you went and had another one," Faun cut in. "It's people like you who're the problem, making more mouths to feed instead of helping the rest of us!"

"Oh, like you ever get your lazy carcass out to work the fields! I'm trying to keep our race from dying out, and you—"

"No, you—"

Someone shoved someone else, and in a flash, Undyne interposed herself between them. "Take it outside!" she ordered, addressing the angry latecomers as a whole. "Or, don't fight each other over something we can't control! Put some of that energy where it counts!"

"Like where? Going out to look for food and getting captured by humans like her?"

It was no use: more squabbles and counter-squabbles started breaking out, and within seconds, the place was in chaos. Sans moved in front of Frisk, knowing he couldn't trust himself to join the fray—he was already agitated, and it’d be too easy to kill someone by mistake. Undyne had no such qualms, and was dragging a couple of miscreants around in headlocks when an ear-splitting whistle brought everyone to their knees.

The only exception was the child on Frisk's lap. The priestess had shielded his ears with one hand, and was lowering the other from her mouth. "There's more coming," she said into the pained silence, voice clear and steady. "Sans has arranged to pick up several hundred pounds of food, two days from now. We'll bring it straight back here, and every last one of you will have some, including your families." Frisk gave the room a slight smile. "If I'm lying, feel free to eat me instead."

Before anyone else could speak, Gerson tapped the bar next to her. "Is it true that you're in talks to buy us that place on the river?" he asked.

"Yes, and we can improve your existing farmland in the meantime," replied Frisk.

Murmurs arose throughout the room, hope warring with skepticism. "Well," Gerson said slowly, "on behalf of the entire Underground, I've got to say—"

"OH MY GOD!" Sans and Frisk both sighed as Papyrus waved from the doorway. "CAPTAIN UNDYNE! THE QUEEN IS HERE! SHE WANTS TO SEE KRIS RIGHT AWAY!"

The crowd gasped, monsters hurrying to stand aside for Frisk; she waved away Sans' proffered hand, set the kid on the bar, and hopped down. "I'll be right there," she called to Papyrus, and walked out through the aisle, smiling at each monster in passing.

That was what did the trick, Sans thought, along with Pap getting her name wrong—good reminders of the warm-hearted human they'd known and loved. The murmuring started right back up again, but now the thoughtful or hopeful voices were much louder, the pissy ones silent.

The seahorse had floated down to the floor and was bobbing his way through the crowd. Watching him go, Sans wondered about Frisk's reaction to being called a princess. Not only should she be one, as far as he was concerned, she should be in line to rule the whole damn kingdom. Judging from her performance as High Priestess, she'd be damn good at it, much better than her scrawny little half-brother...

Undyne had left right after Frisk, and the other monsters were filing out. When the place was nearly empty, Gerson muttered, "You've got to do better than that, son."

The giant skeleton shook himself and scowled at the old man. "Whaddya mean? I didn't attack anyone. I was just makin' sure nobody went after Frisk."

Another laugh, shorter and more cynical. "You're about three hundred years too young to play dumb with me, boy!" Gerson brandished the stick at him. "What I mean is, I don't blame you for bein' sweet on her, but you can't keep looking at her like that. For one thing, it's embarrassing! Wah ha ha!" Thu-thump. "More importantly," he said, sobering in an instant, "people 'round here have nothing to do but talk. No one's forgotten the whole mess with Chara, 'specially not His Majesty. Better not give him a reason to think history's gonna repeat itself."

Sans tried to formulate a denial, and also several questions, but then the old tortoise banged his stick on the floor again, this time to assist himself in sliding off the barstools. "I'd tell you to leave her be," he grumbled, "but if your SOUL's made up its mind, I suppose there's no helping it." A gross, multi-part sniffle. "That little lady, strong enough to match a boss monster? Ha! Will wonders never cease?" He adjusted his pith helmet. "Well, feel free to come see me in Waterfall, the both of you—but not till tomorrow! This was plenty of excitement for one day! Wah ha!"

"Hold up!" Sans protested as the tortoise started shambling toward the door. "What do you mean, 'the whole mess with'—"

Right on cue, there was a cry of "BROTHER!" as Papyrus popped his head in. "BROTHER, COME AND SEE! KRISK HAS BROUGHT PUZZLES! THERE'S ONE FOR YOU, TOO!"

Ah, the gifting had begun. Sans waved him away. "Tell 'er ta get started without me."

"REALLY? IF YOU SAY SO... OH! HELLO, SIR GERSON! THE HUMAN SAID TO TELL YOU THAT SHE HAS PEANUT BRITTLE, NYEH-HEH!"

"Ooooh," the elderly monster said, perking up. The moment Papyrus was gone, Gerson turned and rapped his stick on Sans' patella. "There you have it, boy! It's like my old mam always said: 'Gerson, if you ever find a girl who remembers how much an old fart like you loves his peanut brittle, you hang on to her, human or not!'"

Sans highly doubted that Gerson's old mam had ever said that, but he wasn't in the mood to argue. In fact, he wasn't in the mood for much of anything. Instead, he turned to the bartender as Gerson gradually left. "Hey, Grillbs. I’ve got a few minutes—what's on tap today?"

It was disgusting, he knew, but the simple fact was that Grillby had to stay in business somehow. When there was no food to serve, he could always sell drinks, and when there were no drinks, he had gotten creative—for example, the "mudslide" he slid down the bar to Sans was named for its primary ingredient and sprinkled with enough magic to…still taste like mud. But it was a drink!

The bartender wandered over as Sans downed the whole thing at once, remembering too late that he could have just put his tongue away and avoided tasting it at all. Clearly, he needed to drink a little more and get his head on straight. The skeleton gestured for another, and when Grillby crackled at him, Sans just said, "Don't worry, Frisk'll pay my tab."

The flames on Grillby's eyebrows rose higher, but he produced another mudslide and watched Sans gulp it down. "So," said the boss monster, "I kinda remember what happened with Chara, but my memory ain't what it used to be since everythin’ blew up in my face." He held his mug out. "Wanna tell me a little more 'bout ‘er?"

"...and this is for you, too," said Frisk, placing another box in front of Toriel.

The goat monster shook her head. "Goodness, child, you shouldn't have! How am I supposed to carry all this back with me?"

"Make Sans do it," Undyne suggested, to general approval.

They had decided to tackle the gift distribution in stages, starting with Papyrus, Undyne, and Toriel, and were opening them in the skeleton brothers' living room. Papyrus was happily occupied with his first gift, an interlocking ring puzzle; he'd declined to open anything else yet, ostensibly to wait for his brother, but mostly out of impatience to get the rings apart.

"Speaking of which, where is Sans?" asked Toriel. Papyrus was already muttering to himself, the rings clicking as he began tugging harder.

"Who knows, Your Majesty?" Undyne had only a few boxes by her feet, and was doing her best not to look at them too hard until everything had been doled out. She brightened as Frisk set two more down for her. "Is that all of 'em?"

"That's all for everyone here." Frisk picked up the very last package, straining a little to lift it, and took it to the back room. When she returned, she said, "You can open them now, Lady Toriel, or wait until you get home. Since we're staying so close by, Undyne, I think you can go ahea—"

The Captain had already ripped open her first box and tossed the lid aside. She paused and squinted at an array of bottles nestled in white cotton. "What's all this?"

"There's regular moisturizer, waterproof moisturizer, burn ointment, treatment for scale rot, an antiseptic for small cuts, and armor polish," Frisk explained, pointing to each in turn. "I infused everything myself, except the polish."

"Thanks! I hope you don't expect me to remember all that," Undyne commented, bending to grab the next box and catching herself mid-rip. "Oh. Uh, sorry, Your Majesty. Your turn."

Toriel smiled. "Please go ahead, Captain. I—"

The box was already wide open. "Whoa!" It was a set of the "history books" Undyne had admired on the humans' last visit—the most action-filled comics Frisk could find, much more violent than the story-driven ones Alphys liked. She grabbed the top one and flipped through it gleefully. "Ha ha! I can't believe it! Are those his guts?"

"NYEHHH!" Meanwhile, Papyrus was now reduced to banging the rings on the arm of the couch. "HUMAN! I DO NOT WISH TO ALARM YOU, BUT IT SEEMS THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SOLD A DEFECTIVE PUZZLE!" He gave the rings a final shake and threw them on the floor, then plunked himself down on the couch, arms grumpily folded.

Undyne glanced up from her comic and snickered. Papyrus looked very hurt until his friend bent to pick up the separated rings, holding them over her head like spoils of war. "See, Pap? You gave it your all, and look what happened!" She threw the rings back on the floor and caught his arms to pull him up for a triumphant noogie. "I knew you had it in you!"

"Y-YES, OF COURSE! THE GREAT PAPYRUS CAN CONQUER ANY PUZZLE! N-NYEH-HEH-HEH! ...PLEASE STOP CELEBRATING MY GREAT VICTORY!"

"I believe I'll open something now," Toriel murmured, leaving Papyrus to extricate himself. She unwrapped the paper on the top box, peeked inside, and immediately gave a squeal of joy. "Oh, my goodness! My child, how did you—" She clasped her hands. "Are those real vanilla beans?! And—"

"I didn't know the exact recipe, so I got every pie ingredient I could think of," Frisk said, grinning at Toriel's excitement. She slid out the bottom box in the stack. "Check these next, please. I couldn't remember if you needed salted and unsalted butter, so I got both."

"Yes, I do! But..." The boss monster pulled out tall jars of milk, buttermilk, and heavy cream, then looked at her narrowly. "I don't wish to be rude, but how long have you been transporting these? I know the weather is cold, but won't they have spoiled by now?"

"Not on my watch," declared Frisk. "I used a few preservatives—if you put a little in the jar beforehand, it keeps the contents fresh for up to a week without affecting the flavor."

"Seriously?" Even Undyne was interested. "That's pretty neat. Is this the kind of stuff you've been teaching Sans?"

"Yes, it is. He knows how to make preservatives, medicine, fertilizer—I brought the recipes and ingredients for those, too. You'll be able to save a huge amount of magic using them."

"I see," Toriel said slowly. She smiled, almost a grimace, as she put the jars away. "It may not have been under the best circumstances, but I am very thankful that he met you again, my child. His life has very hard since...since the accident, and I have not been as supportive as I could have. Spending time with a wonderful friend like you must have been such a relief to him."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Majesty. You had a lot of problems, too," protested Undyne.

"Yes, but I..." Toriel was definitely grimacing now. "I suppose you're right, Captain. Still, I am very glad to know that he has been in Frisk's care."

Frisk was fighting another blush. Her neck still itched from the healing spell the innkeeper had given her for the “crick” in her neck before they checked out that morning. "I hope I’ve helped. I know what it's like to lose someone, and to feel alone. I've missed you all so much," she said truthfully. "I just wish it was safe for some of you to come back with us for a visit."

Toriel's golden gaze sharpened. "With 'us,' my child? What do you mean?"

"Sans is gonna escort her home," Undyne said quickly. "Also, she wants bring some of our stuff back with her to show off, but she doesn't know how it all works. The humans are kinda used to Sans by now, so we figured he might as well tag along."

"That does sound like a good idea," Toriel agreed, and Frisk caught Undyne's eye for a grateful moment. "Would you like to open something else now, Papyrus?"

"HM?" The skeleton was playing with the rings again, figuring out how to lock them back together. "NO, THANK YOU, LADY TORIEL. I'LL WAIT FOR SANS. WHERE IS HE?"

Undyne was already tearing open another box, unasked. "Oh, no way! Are these targets?!"

"Of course! They look like wood, but it's actually metal." Frisk got up to look out the window. Where was Sans?

"Who knows? Maybe he found a lady friend," Undyne said absently, flicking the metal discs to test their sturdiness.

"That's not a nice thing to say, Undyne," Toriel reproved her.

For half an irate second, Frisk thought Toriel was angry on her behalf. Then her brain caught up, and she turned to ask, "Why? Because there aren't any other boss monsters?"

"Exactly," said the former Queen, "and a lesser monster would not suit him. It's honestly a bit cruel to suggest that he—"

"WHAT ABOUT A HUMAN?" Papyrus asked without looking up.

Pause. "A human?" Toriel repeated as Undyne and Frisk glanced at each other in alarm.

"YES. HUMANS ARE PLENTIFUL, AND SOME OF THEM HAVE MAGIC! COULDN'T SANS BORROW ONE? FOR EXAMPLE, FRISK IS VERY—"

"No."

Everyone froze at the vehemence in Toriel's voice. The boss monster breathed in, and out, almost baring her teeth. "I...excuse me. I need to check that this is everything necessary for a pie."

Undyne let the targets slide off her lap as Toriel took her boxes to the kitchen. "What's the matter with you, Papyrus?" the Captain hissed. "Why’d you have to go and bring up humans? Don't you remember what happened with Chara?"

The skeleton's brow creased. "JUST THAT THE HUMAN PRINCESS WENT TO LIVE WITH OTHER HUMANS...WHEN WAS IT AGAIN?"

"A little over…what, twenty years ago? I guess you were probably just a kid, but still…" Undyne saw how intently Frisk was listening, and sighed. The Captain checked the kitchen, where Toriel was occupied with moving things around and muttering to herself, then beckoned them closer. "Okay, here’s the short version. A bunch of humans came to see the King," she said quietly. "They were here for a couple weeks, and Chara got really depressed after they left. The King wound up sending her off to marry one of the guys she'd met—didn’t you learn this in history class, Pap?"

Papyrus still looked blank, and the fish monster sighed in exasperation. "Anyway, she came right back here 'cause the marriage didn't work out, not sure why. Asgore had a huge fight with Asriel and the Queen about whether Chara should stay here or go marry another human. He made her leave again, but she never got married to anyone, and she didn't come back until the visit where everyone blew up."

"OH." Papyrus looked at the reconnected rings in his hand. "WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH SANS MARRYING A HUMAN?"

There went Frisk's face again. "Because," mumbled Undyne, "as far as everyone is concerned, it all happened because a human got too involved with monsters—an adult human,” she clarified, nodding at Frisk. “The whole problem with Chara was that there was no one here for her to pair off with. Monsters can always figure out a way to combine their magic if they really want to have kids, but she didn't have any magic at all, so it wouldn’t have worked. Besides, humans barely even live sixty years. Asgore thought it'd cause too much heartache if she stayed."

Papyrus digested this information for a moment, then said at least part of what Frisk was thinking: "DIDN'T IT CAUSE A LOT MORE HEARTACHE TO SEND HER AWAY? THIS WAS HER HOME, AND THEY WERE HER FAMILY, EVEN IF SHE COULDN’T GET MARRIED."

"That's exactly what Asriel and Toriel thought, and they never forgave him for it. Then both Chara and Asriel wound up dead, and Asgore blamed every single thing on the humans. Then Toriel stood up in front of everyone and said it was his own damn fault for throwing their child out like a dog, twice, and here we are now."

Frisk shivered. Those were Chara's words from the day Frisk hid in the living room and overheard those terrible things. As a child, she hadn't understood why Chara seemed to hate her kind, loving parents so much. Poor Princess, Frisk thought bitterly, digging her nails into her leg. "Papyrus," she said aloud, "check your gray box. It's not a puzzle."

A moment later, Toriel looked up at a strange sound, like air hissing out of a broken pipe. She finished re-packing the pie ingredients and turned to see Papyrus holding up a bundle of dry pasta, some ground beef, various herbs, and a bag of fresh tomatoes. His sockets were the size of salad plates, and he was making a noise that could best be described as a pre-scream.

"Hey, would you look at that, Pap! You haven't made spaghetti in years! What have you done?" Undyne said through gritted teeth, ending with a glare at Frisk.

As expected, Papyrus paid no attention. He had just enough presence of mind to set the box down gently before he exploded into a rapturous, unbroken "THANK YOOOOU" that lasted at least two straight minutes, starting with a huge hug-and-twirl for Frisk, then Undyne as she rescued the human, and finally ending in the kitchen with "LADY TORIEL!!! LOOK!!!!"

"That is wonderful, Papyrus, but…oh, dear! Look at the time," Toriel exclaimed. "Ladies, may I expect you at my house tonight, around eight o’clock? I'll have a pie waiting!"

Frisk bit back her reflexive protest about Sans. "What about the rest of your gifts?" she asked instead.

Toriel smiled at her. "We can come back here tomorrow, of course! After all, I missed seeing Sans today. We don't need to stay cooped up in the Ruins for your entire visit!"

"AND IT MAY BE POSSIBLE THAT I WILL HAVE LEFTOVER SPAGHETTI FOR YOU, LADY TORIEL!" added Papyrus. "NOT THAT I EXPECT IT TO GO UNEATEN, NYEH! I WILL MERELY BE SURE TO MAKE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE. I WOULD HATE FOR YOU TO MISS THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF CULINARY PERFECTION!"

"Yes, of course," the former Queen said kindly, eye twitching only a little.

The priestess hesitated, and Undyne stepped in again: "We'll see what happens this afternoon, Your Majesty. We've got a lot more stuff to give out, and Alphys wants to see Frisk, too. I don't know how late we'll be back here tonight, and it's a long walk to the Ruins—"

"That's what Sans is for!" Toriel said gaily, and Frisk felt a twinge of irritation. "If I come across him," the boss monster continued, gathering up the boxes of ingredients, "I will be sure to send him straight here. Until then, my child, please enjoy your stay. I'll see you this evening!"

There was no way out of it, so Frisk smiled and nodded and waited for the door to close before she said, "Dammit."

Undyne shrugged sympathetically. "It's a mom thing. Mine was the same way."

Frisk bent to pick up handfuls of packing paper. "So was mine," she muttered.

The Captain waited for more, but Frisk went on grabbing and folding up paper until it became apparent that that was all. Undyne shrugged, glanced at her unopened boxes, and shrugged again, reaching for the comics. "Just put it outside," she advised as Frisk looked around for a larger trashcan. The human sighed, draping her cloak over her shoulders as she opened the door.

Papyrus was puttering around the kitchen in sheer bliss. Out of habit, Undyne got up to supervise, and they were soon embroiled in a deathmatch against the tomatoes and noodles. "Higher! HIGHER!" the Captain yelled. "Remember! You have to break your foes' fighting spirit! Hear their cries of defeat and smell their agony!"

The skeleton clanged the wooden spoon harder against the sides of the pot. "Yes! I hear it!" he exclaimed.

"Yes! Good! You—" Undyne stopped. "Wait. I hear it, too." She went to the door, through which came a distinctive, high-pitched sound. "Oh," she said in disgust. "What the hell is he doing here?" The fish monster reached for the doorknob. "Close your ears, Pap."

Papyrus blinked, spoon still poised for a mortal blow. "But I don't have—"

Undyne opened the door, and the skeleton dropped the spoon into the sauce mixture as a shrill mechanical voice cut through the air: "I simply can't believe it! My little beauty grew into such a real beauty! What a sight for sore eyes amidst all these...these monsters!"

"Shut up, tin man," snapped the Royal Guard Captain, coming onto the porch. "I—oh! Hey, Alphys! Where did you guys come from?"

"From a place with manners." Mettaton adjusted his fur stole and swept back his fringe of real black hair. "That awful skeleton said my little beauty was here, so I came all this way—"

"Do you know where Sans is?" demanded Frisk, who was still recovering from the shock of going to take out the garbage and encountering Mettaton instead.

"Y-yes," said the scientist, coming up behind the automaton. "He came to see me in a p-panic because he forgot how to teleport home. I hope he's still sleeping back in the l-lab."

Frisk stood stock-still. “He forgot…?”

“Pffffahahahaha!" The fish monster slammed her fist into the side of the house. "Oh my God! I knew I should have dragged him out of Grillby's when I had the chance! He was drunk, wasn't he?"

Alphys just sighed. Frisk growled under her breath, which made Undyne laugh even harder. "He..." She choked back a sob. "He was right here, and he walked all the way to...to..."

Pause. "I think he t-took the ferry," Alphys said, and moved back as the Captain collapsed into a snorting heap.

Oh, for God's sake, Sans! "Never mind. It's wonderful to see you again, Mettaton!" she said with unfeigned enthusiasm, shaking the automaton's still-pearly-gloved hand. His arms were much less floppy now, his body more streamlined, face smoothly outlined with tiny gemstones. Before he could launch into any further praise, the human moved aside and took Alphys' clawed hand. "And thank you so much for coming all the way here, Doctor. It means a lot to me."

There was that shy, scaly smile. "Th-thank you, um, Frisk. I'm r-really glad you're here." She chuckled nervously. "This is going to t-take some getting used to. But...you are v-very p-pretty."

Frisk smiled wider, and bent to give the scientist a hug. “Thank you,” she said in Alphys’ ear. “I’ve really missed you.”

The scientist mumbled something, then yelped as Undyne suddenly scooped them both up. "You know what else? This lady brought a buttload of presents for everyone,” she announced, setting them down on the porch. “Go on in while I grab your stuff!"

"I..." It was no use pointing out that the living room was about a third of the size required to open all the additional gifts, especially Mettaton's: Undyne was already charging toward the shed. "Yes, please, come in," said Frisk, leading the way inside. It would pass the time till Sans got back, she thought ruefully.

It wasn't his fault. Grillby had talked, and Sans had drank mudslides, and then Sans didn't know where he was anymore.

Everything was a blur for a while after that. He had no explanation for why he kept walking back and forth past his house, or how he wound up on the ferry, or how long he'd been lying outside the lab when Mettaton's rib-prodding woke him up. Sans had made it inside and found some nice cool floor to collapse on, and nothing else happened for a while.

Then a horrible, oozing feeling of dread crept over him, starting at the top of his cranium and trickling down till it hit his SOUL. He twisted to look upward at a familiar little pair of feet. The demon-child was suddenly peering down into his face, waving merrily, whispering, “Good to be back.”

And then it was gone. It stayed gone, too—no more fear, no nightmares, nothing. That was a relief, but a really weird one. The thing probably hadn’t even been there; it was just the mudslide talking…

The next time Sans awoke, he was alone, and any lingering apprehensions vanished as he looked at the clock. It was already late afternoon, heading into the evening. Shit! Where was Alphys? Where was Frisk?!

...Right. She was in Snowdin. Okay.

Where was Snowdin?!

Think, think. Snowdin: he lived there. It had his house. Sans took stock of his magic, which was doing well, and his mental capabilities, which could probably direct his teleportation now without getting him encased in solid rock or dropping him hundreds of feet from the cavern ceiling. The giant skeleton concentrated, and a moment later, he was back on the floor in his own room.

An odd smell was drifting up from the kitchen almost directly below. Dammit, he'd told Frisk not to actually get any spaghetti stuff! Oh, well, Pap sounded pretty happy. Where was everyone else?

A faint thud on the side of the house answered that question; Undyne was outside, laughing her ass off. Not long after, the front door crashed open and more voices flooded the house. To his surprise, he heard Mettaton and maybe a little of Alphys before Undyne and Papyrus drowned her out. There was Frisk, too, directing things—how the hell were they going to fit everyone inside?

The answer seemed to be a combination of Papyrus sitting on the stairs and Undyne smushing up against Alphys on the couch. Sans wished Undyne would hurry up and ask her out already; Al could use some non-fictional companionship, and the house could use a little less time with Undyne in it.

Should he at least come out and say hi, even if he had to stay upstairs and lean over the railing? But he didn't feel like talking to everyone, or making them feel like they had to find room for him. Besides, for all he knew, Frisk was still mad at him, just because he'd been a stupid jerk in front of people and then disappeared without warning for half the day...

No, better stay where he was for now, safe in his room, listening to them have fun as Undyne brought the presents in, and not feeling jealous or lonely at all.

Mettaton went first, because he was Mettaton. He also had the bulkiest set of gifts, including several bolts of very expensive silk; the automaton was so overjoyed that he promised to have his tailors make a couple of things for Frisk, too, and loan her some of his new hair accessories. Sans just hoped he wasn't going to make her wear the literal paint she'd bought for his face!

Did she even own any makeup? He'd never seen her wear more than a tiny bit. Come to think of it, he'd never seen her wear anything fancier than that dumb, sexy purple dress for All Souls Day.

There was more mechanical jubilation from downstairs, this time over the sets of dance steps and sheet music. Now MTT was proposing a grand fete after the next shipment of food arrived and Frisk's measurements had been taken, perhaps toward the end of her visit. After all, she still couldn’t be sure that Asgore was willing to make peace between the two kingdoms, and whether the dance would be a celebration or a permanent send-off; more importantly, they couldn’t start planning till the caterers knew exactly what they'd be working with.

Sans smirked into the darkness. A party, huh? As long as it didn't remind anyone of the farewell gala thirteen-ish years ago, then whatever, Frisk would love it; he'd be careful not to stare too hard if she got dressed up. He'd seen plenty of fancy ladies at the castle, and he was sure he could handle the sight of any—

Cries of dismay came through the floorboards. The boss monster was ready to zip downstairs and start busting heads, but the furor died right down, and he soon pieced together what'd happened: Papyrus had come over to admire something with a plate of spaghetti in his hand, only to trip over...probably nothing, and Frisk had thrown herself between the silk on Mettaton’s lap and the flying arc of tomato sauce.

The good news was that Mettaton was offering to take her laundry back with him, including a stain treatment for her sacrificed dress; the bad news was that she didn't have anything clean to wear in the meantime. There was a moment of silence as they tried to figure out what to do, with Mettaton's entourage all the way off in Hotland and the shops already closed for the day.

Alphys spoke, and after another quiet moment, Papyrus yelled something, his footsteps tramping excitedly up the stairs, Frish right behind him. They clattered around for a minute in Pap’s room, probably the closet; then she headed to the bathroom at the end of the hall, Sans trying not to tense up as she walked by.

He must have made some kind of noise, because now Papyrus was knocking on his door. "BROTHER? IS THAT YOU? IF THAT IS YOU, COME OUT THIS INSTANT! WE HAVE ALL BEEN CONCERNED ABOUT YOU AND YOUR TENDENCY TO DISAPPEAR FOR LONG PERIODS WITHOUT BEING HERE!"

Sans cringed. Of course Pap would be worried about him not coming back! Feeling like a complete ass, the boss monster got up slowly, yawning wide and rubbing his sockets as he opened the door. "Hey, bro," he mumbled. "Sorry 'bout that. I just thought I'd get some rest, didn't know I was gonna fall asleep."

"HMPH." Papyrus didn't just make the sound; he always had to say "hummff." "COME DOWNSTAIRS AND SAY HELLO TO OUR GUESTS. AND SPAGHETTI!! THE GREATEST GUEST OF ALL!!"

Oh, for God's sake, Frisk! Why had she—no, there was no use crying about it now. He couldn’t count on giving it away to anyone, either: even the starvingest monster remembered what Pap’s cooking was like. "Whoa, really? Lemme see," Sans said with enough enthusiasm to make Papyrus race downstairs to the kitchen.

The boss monster came out and paused at the head of the stairs. There was a small table in the corner at the foot of the staircase; he lifted it up and set it down next to him in the hallway, then zipped himself down to sit in the now-free space. God, he hated being huge. "Hey, guys," he said, pulling his legs up to his ribcage.

"What do you mean, 'hey, guys'?!" Undyne was glad for the excuse to put down her spaghetti, though it was difficult to find room for it on the floor. "What the hell have you been doing, besides being drunk and stupid?" She tried to stay angry, but a smirk kept showing through. "Did you seriously go all the way to the lab because you couldn't find your house?"

A beat of silence. "Yes?" hazarded Sans.

The only thing that saved Undyne from another attack of the giggles was the bathroom door opening upstairs. "Is that you, Sans?" called Frisk.

His SOUL went pitter-patter again. "Yeah, I'm back. Couldn't stay away from Pap's spaghetti," he replied, earning a soft “NYEHH” from the kitchen.

"I dunno, this might not be the right batch for you," Undyne said, loud enough for Frisk to hear. "The sauce is, uh, good, but it’s..." Snort. "It's..." Cough. "It's really lumpy."

More silence. It took Sans a second to remember why he wanted to punch her for saying that, and then fucking Papyrus had to add, “LUMPS ARE ESSENTIAL FOR PROPER FLAVOR!”

It was quiet upstairs; then Undyne snickered, and Frisk burst out laughing, the sound echoing down the stairwell and setting Undyne off again until both women were near tears.

"Private jokes are for children, darling," Mettaton informed Undyne, nudging his own plate away with his foot.

"You're for children," she mumbled, and Mettaton rolled his crystalline eyes.

“WELL?” A moment of crisis united them again: Papyrus was in the kitchen doorway, looking expectant. Alphys bravely twirled up an entire forkful and crammed it in her mouth, moving her cheeks to fake a smile.

They all fell respectfully silent as Papyrus went back to the kitchen, Undyne grabbing a glass of water for Alphys to help wash it down. "Oh, d-dear. Well, getting back to your idea, M-Mettaton," the scientist wheezed, "we should r-really ask His Majesty b-before we have any big events like that."

Mettaton clicked at her. "Oh, Alphys, it won't be anything excessive! Just a band, a few tables, every single monster in the Underground dressed in their absolute best—"

"Like this?" Frisk asked wryly, coming down the last step.

Sans had angled himself to face the others, and he stayed that way long enough to see their reactions first. For some reason, Mettaton looked as if he’d swallowed a bug. “Really, darling?” the automaton asked distastefully. “It’s like wrapping a star sapphire in toilet paper.”

Papyrus, on the other hand, was absolutely delighted: "AH HA! I KNEW IT WOULD FIT YOU, HUMAN! SANS, LOOK AT WHAT I'VE HAD IN MY CLOSET ALL THESE YEARS, JUST IN CASE, NYEH-HEH!"

"I l-like it. If w-we ever had a costume party, that w-would be perfect," Alphys remarked, adjusting her glasses.

Undyne snorted. "Yeah, except he didn’t look like that up top!"

Sans had no idea what to expect when he turned his head. He’d just been imagining Frisk in a ruffly ballgown, and it occurred to him much later that if she’d come downstairs wearing something really fancy or weird, he’d have been fine. But she wasn’t, and he wasn’t.

Frisk was wearing his old clothes. The blue hooded jacket, the white shirt, the black pants with white stripes—there they were, wrenchingly familiar and yet very different. For one thing, they were a bit too small on her; the pants reached the tops of her knees, while the shirt just barely covered her midsection. She wasn’t a lot taller now than he’d been before the accident, but as Undyne had immediately noticed, Frisk was filling it out far better than Sans ever had.

Her perfect figure notwithstanding, it also hit him that she was wearing the most shoddy, unfashionable, lazily masculine clothes possible �� hence Mettaton’s distress – and she still looked like a princess.

"SPEECHLESS AT MY FORETHOUGHT, EH, BROTHER?" Papyrus had puffed his own chest out. "THE CLOTHING YOU WORE TO THE GALA MAY HAVE BEEN DESTROYED, BUT I HAD A SECOND, SECRET SET HIDDEN AWAY! DID YOU NEVER WONDER HOW I ALWAYS WASHED YOUR CLOTHES SO QUICKLY WHEN YOU WERE IN THE SHOWER?"

Sans tried to say "Sort of," or literally anything else, but too many things were crowding his mind, starting with nostalgia, and amazement that he'd ever been that small, with some bemusement that she was still so tiny. But that outfit also represented everything he used to be, everything he wanted back and couldn't have...and Frisk, who he was supposed to pretend he didn't want.

That was plenty of emotional crap to work through, and it wasn’t even his biggest problem. When Sans tried looking down to get ahold of himself, he found himself staring at the one thing that fit her perfectly.

“YES, I EVEN PRESERVED YOUR SOCKS FOR POSTERITY!” boasted Papyrus. “I HAVE ALLOWED YOU TO KEEP THAT GIANT PILE IN YOUR ROOM, EXCEPT OF COURSE FOR THE ONES I MADE INTO SOCK PUPPETS. BUT THOSE THAT I SAVED AS REGULAR SOCKS HAVE BEEN AWAITING THE DAY WHEN SOMEONE COULD WEAR THEM AGAIN!”

Sans made a noise. It could have been a disagreeable noise, or a polite one, or anything in between. He didn’t know, or care, because her feet were right there, and his dumb old socks had somehow become the most erotic thing imaginable—and he could imagine a lot of things. Sure, her feet had always been cute to look at because they were so small, but so was the rest of her. Those stupid goddamn socks were…more cute. A lot more.

Not for the first time, he thought of last night, smelling and hearing and touching, and wondered what’d happen if they ever got around to that stuff again with more lights on. He could handle seeing her, or everything else at once, and literally no combination thereof.

Frisk was looking at him, wine-colored eyes wide with puzzlement. “Sans?” She raised one foot to scratch her other calf. “Are you—”

Noooope nope— The only thing Sans could do to keep from tackling her in front of everyone was yell, “Be right back!” and take a shortcut to the first place he could think of.

There was stunned silence in his aftermath. Alphys gave a faint, heartbroken moan of “Oh, c-c-c’mon, he was right at the best part!”

“My, my,” Mettaton said slowly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was being…amorous.”

“Nope, no way, he’s just weird,” Undyne muttered. “He probably doesn’t have a thing for feet at all. …Geez, did you guys see the way he was staring?! What’s wrong with him?”

Frisk was beet-red. “Well, dinner was absolutely delicious!” she chirped. “Thank you, Papyrus! So, Alphys! Why don’t you open your gifts now?!”

By unspoken consent, they turned to watch Alphys pick up her first box, passing their plates back for Frisk to discreetly scrape back into the pot and shove back into the refrigerator. Luckily, Papyrus wasn’t paying much attention; he was still staring at the foot of the stairs where his brother had been. “HOW STRANGE,” he muttered. “I REALLY THOUGHT HE’D LIKE THE SOCKS.”

One hour later, the clock struck eight, and Asgore jerked upright, staring blearily into the semi-darkness. Only the kitchen light was on; the fireplace was down to the last embers. The King of monsters retrieved his cold tea, threw it into the grate, and got up to put the mug in the sink.

A sound at the front door made him look up; a heavy knock made him scowl and raise his voice a little more than necessary. “Yes? Can it wait till morning?” he asked brusquely.

“I don’t think ya should, Yer Majesty,” said a familiar voice.

Asgore’s scowl deepened until he was nearly snarling. With great effort, he said, “One moment, Sans,” and tossed the mug into the kitchen, ignoring the sound of ceramic breaking. He took his time crossing the living room, and was in no hurry to unlock or open the door. “Good evening,” he eventually greeted the other boss monster.

Sans was a couple of steps down, putting him and the King on eye level. “Evenin’,” he replied. “Sorry ta be here so close to bedtime, but I owe someone a favor.”

Asgore raised an eyebrow. “A favor? What do y—”

“Dreemurr.”

The King stood as though he’d been changed to stone: not even his eyes moved as Toriel emerged from behind the leafless black tree in the courtyard. She nodded grimly, folding her hands. “I am here to say something to you about Frisk. Anything you say in return will be a waste of breath.”

No reaction. She nodded again and took another step forward, voice flat, eyes cold and hard. “You’ve allowed Frisk to be here, but I know you, Your Majesty. You’ll let the rest of her visit pass without so much as a word to her, and you will let her go home empty-handed, hoping Stephin will forbid her to come again and save you further discomfort. Never mind the possibility of procuring food for your people and freeing our kindred from slavery, unless you—”

“Tori,” grunted Sans. “Leave ‘im alone. Get to the point.”

Asgore glanced at him in surprise. Toriel ground her teeth, but after a moment, she said calmly, “You are right, my friend. I will be brief: I wish to inform His Majesty that if any harm befalls Frisk for any reason while she is here, there will be consequences…and that if His Majesty does not meet with her in a diplomatic capacity before she returns to the humans, I will do so.”

Both men started. “You can’t do that,” the King protested. “When you left here—”

Sans braced himself, and sure enough, Tori drew herself up till she seemed about thirty feet tall. “Do not tell me what I cannot do, Dreemurr!” she thundered. “When I left here, I ceased to be Queen, but I have not ceased to be me! You will not take another child from me, and I will not allow you to deprive our people of their last hope because you are too proud to admit your own incompetence! Do you understand?”

One more long, frozen instant. Asgore took a deep breath…

He slammed the door shut.

Sans coughed theatrically. “So. That…that happened.”

Toriel’s eyes closed. “Take us to Snowdin, please” was all she said.

Sans complied, letting her come up and lay a furry hand on his arm before he whisked them through space and onto the porch of his house.

“Thank you, my friend,” said Toriel. She gave him a tired smile. “I am so sorry. You wanted someone to talk to, and I made you take me straight to that close-minded, selfish—” The former Queen shook herself. “I…don’t suppose that whatever you wanted to talk about can be discussed in a minute or so? I’d like to collect the girls and head home now. If you want to stop by tomorrow—”

“Nah, the timing’s my fault. Don’t worry, it’s a short thing,” Sans said absently. He glanced at the door, wondering if everyone was still there, then ceasing to wonder as he heard several different voices at once and also some clanking. It sounded like they were playing charades. “It’s more of a thing I’d like ya to think over so we can talk about it later. And don’t tell anyone. Please.”

Toriel nodded pleasantly. “Of course, Sans. What is troubling you?”

Sans grabbed the doorknob, said, “I’m in love with a human,” and opened the door to boisterous greetings of “Sans!” “Where have you been, punk?!” and “SANS! THANK GOODNESS! QUICK, HELP ME EXPRESS THE CONCEPT OF ‘SUMMER RAINDROPS’!”

#songfell #shoulda been like three ones oh well

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xantchaslegacy · 4 years

Text

Even the Swine

The dragon reminded Domri of the boar-god.

It was a stupid comparison, obviously. They looked nothing like each other, and Domri knew for a fact that Ilharg was somewhere else in the city, finally let loose to smash the Azorius and the Orzhov and all the bastards who spat on him and his.

But the power the dragon had about him. The same power Domri had felt the night Ilharg entered his dreams, speaking a language Domri didn’t know, but that he understood perfectly. The language that made sense of slaughter. The language that let Domri bring all the lost beasts of Ravnica to his side and finally set the Gruul clans on the right path.

Power. The other guilds wielded false power gained through lies and tricks. The pathetic guildless had no power, and would never amount to anything. Even among the Gruul, there was too much fear to wield power. Only power could smash this rotten place. Only real power.

So why not follow real power?

Domri splashed through a puddle that was probably more blood than water. At his back the most loyal of the clans stomped along with him. A small group, but some of the best and strongest of the Gruul. Strong enough to see that Domri would lead them to a better life.

Even so, many of them couldn’t keep their eyes off the fools running around them, fleeing from the eternals instead of joining them. Idiots who couldn’t see that the blue men were here to remove the boot of guild oppression.

“We should help ‘em,” Revka grunted at Domri’s side. The big-shouldered berserker was looking toward the storefronts, at a bunch of eternals trying to get at a clutch of guildless workers. Two Golgari trolls and a spike-clad bloodwitch were fending them off with improvised weapons.

“Why?” Domri turned away. “They want to protect the weak, then they can die with the weak.”

“They’re fellow chaos-guilders,” Revka said. Domri could hear the frown on her face.

“Eh. Let the Raze take ‘em. We’ve got bigger rats to fry.”

“Should we bash them?” Another companion, a big-bellied ogre called Chokki, pointed a thumb over his shoulder. A bunch of gateless folk were huddled in a half-collapsed archway off the square, trying not to catch the attention of the metal skeletons that were wandering every inch of the district.

“If we’re not gonna help them, that is.”

Domri scowled. They shouldn’t even have been there, weak things. Idiots who licked the boots of merchants and the guilds of order, no doubt. They should have joined the clans when they had the chance. They should have joined the power that would have helped them.

He sneered. “Leave ‘em. This is happening for their good too. Either they’ll get to live in the dragon’s new world or they’ll die, either way it’s better than living in this stinking city as it is.”

“New world.” Thom, a long-legged viashino, looked around the street. Fires reflected in his wide eyes. “What kinda world do you suppose he wants?”

Domri scratched his chin. “It’ll be a world for the powerful. The right kind of powerful, this time.”

“Sure, Dom.” Chokki frowned at the eternals, still grappling with the Golgari. “Are we the right kind of powerful?” That got the others muttering. A few even stopped, and it looked like they might be itching to help with the fight.

On the wrong side.

Domri stomped. “That’s the world of laws back there. Laws that protect the weak and spit on us. It’s got nothing to offer any of you.” He thrust his axe toward the plaza. “That’s where the new power is. That’s what the Gruul have got to adopt to survive.”

The others exchanged looks. Most shrugged and followed Domri, but a few cowards slunk off to help fight the eternals.

Domri spat after them, and stomped away. Too frightened to follow power to freedom? Fine. He knew there were weaklings like that in the clans. He’d lived with them all his life.

Old Borborygmos had seemed powerful, once. He was big. Strong. But he lacked the power of will. The power to use power to do what had to be done in the world.

He’d seemed powerful when Domri first challenged him. When the fire of the Raze-boar filled Domri’s heart and the wild beasts of Ravnica had flocked to him, throwing the suppressed rage of every member of the clans at the cyclops’ dragging feet. Borborygmos had knocked aside the first few easily. Easily enough that Domri had felt the old fear of his own smallness again. Easily enough that Domri had almost begun to doubt.

But then the first boar had made it past Borborygmos’ axe and struck his heel. Then the great coward had stumbled, and all the clans saw it. They saw him fall to one knee, then to another, and numbers overcame him. Tusks tore new scars into his legs. Heavy bodies rammed him. He beat at them still, killing a few, but unable to overcome the mighty rhythm of the wild. He’d dragged himself away like a dog, and even the swine had jeered his weakness.

...

The sky was clear by the time they reached the plaza, though the streets were anything but. Ravnicans, Eternals, and people in strange clothes who could only have been other planeswalkers were fighting, running, hiding. Some of Domri’s boars had found their way to the plaza, and charged through the screaming crowds, bowling aside outsiders and city natives in their rage. There were enough idiots fighting the eternals to keep them busy, but still the odd skeleton had made a run at Domri’s group, and gotten carved up for their trouble.

They were almost dangerous, as distracted as Domri and his companions were by the titans that loomed over the Plaza.

Every child knew that there had been ten stone titans long ago, that those pompous Boros had called on when they wanted to stamp down on anyone who dared want to be free. These new creatures might have been them, if they hadn’t looked so much like the eternals. If they didn’t also stomp wojeks and ledevs alongside the guildless beneath their metal-sandaled feet.

“Do you feel that?” Domri whispered. “The power of gods. They feel the same as Ilharg.”

The others looked at him like he was out of his head. The words did sound wild, it was true. But he felt in them the same raw power as he felt in the Raze-boar. The same power to topple the world.

The power the dragon radiated by the ton.

“Dragon!” He shouted, channeling the violence of the wilds into his voice. “I’m Domri Rade! Champion and leader of the Gruul clans!” He waved at his companions. “We’re here to help you bring this place to the ground!”

The dragon didn’t even flinch. He was looking somewhere else in the chaos of the plaza.

Chokki coughed. “I don’t think he hears ya, Dom’”

Domri swore. “Yeah, I can see that!” He looked around the plaza. The Dragon’s new gods were killing people by the handful. The eternals were killing people by the handful. If the dragon couldn’t hear him, then he’d show his allegiance by example. “Krokt, just start killing the strange-looking ones. It’s their own damn fault for coming here anyways.”

The others hesitated. Domri snarled and charged a tall human with red face paint who hovered off the ground like a ghost. Another planeswalker, sure, but he defied the dragon-

Domri swung his axe. The strange man folded around it and lay still on the ground.

-and the dragon was the only power now.

Something collided with his axe on the back-swing. An older guildless man. He fell to the ground, at the feet of other ragged-clothed guildless. Family? Friends?

Domri didn’t have a lot of time to consider the group before they all pressed toward him, as if they didn’t care how dangerous he was. A line of eternals followed right behind them, weapons drawn. Behind Domri it was the same. His clan-mates pressed together, suddenly surrounded by a wall of blue and shiny bronze.

“P-please!” The guildless man scrambled up, clutching at Domri. “You have to protect us. You have to get us out of here.”

“Get off!” Domri shoved the man away, and he stumbled at the feet of the eternals. Two of his fellow guildless rushed after him, grabbing at his cloak to pull him away from the eternals. They got him halfway to his feet before eternal blades stuck them in a dozen places. The last one, a boy a little younger than Domri, tried to flee on his hands and knees, but a blue foot stomped down on his back, cracking his spine.

“Shoulda stayed in your home,” Domri muttered at the corpses. His heart was hammering. The other’s boy’s limp hand was inches from Domri’s own foot. “Shoulda just stood aside and let us bring the old ways back.”

Rade. I see you had brains enough to challenge Borborygmos at the right time.

The voice of power boomed like a battle-cry in Domri’s skull. The magical fires around the dragon’s feet flared up. Domri’s heart rose up. He’d been right. Power was on the side of nature. On the side of the Gruul.

I hope you’re grateful. I lost my best contact in the Simic procuring a contagion to make the cyclops weak enough to best without him realizing.

Domri blinked. Simic? What did they have to do with anything?

What brings you here? What can you offer me, little walker?

“I-I’ve brought you the clans!” Domri thumped his chest. “We’re all ready. Ready to tear down the stones and make Ravnica a paradise for the strong.”

The laugh that filled Domri’s head was unexpected. Unexpected and chilling.

An amusing fantasy, but I have all the dumb muscle I need. Your spark is worth much more to me now than you are.

A spear plunged through Chokki’s chest. The tips poked out of his back like tiny golden zits popping with blood. The ogre fell to his knees, grabbing uselessly at the wound.

Actually, I suppose it always was.

Domri barely had the time to get his weapon up to block a gob of acid-magic flung at his face. Revka’s scream cut short as an eternal’s tail ripped a hole in her throat. Thom managed to block a sword-strike, only to have the wind and the life bashed out of him by another eternal’s savage headbutt.

Two eternals came at Domri from the left and the right. One he smashed through with his axe. The other actually threw down its sword and reached out for him with its bare hands. It was almost fast enough to grab him, except that Chokki’s body came down on it, smashing it to the stone.

Domri swung his axe again in a wide arc, smashing apart two eternals whose weapons were still in his friends. He realized he was shouting. With a jolt and a bit of shame, he realized there were tears in his eyes.

“Bloody shits! We were here to help!” He scooped up a chunk of rubble and hurled it at another eternal. The bull-thing caught the stone in the head and stumbled a step, which was all Domri needed to get his axe up in the air and crack the thing’s chest apart. “We just meant to-”

He paused. The other eternals had stepped back. A single skeleton, all in fancy garb, was walking at him, holding a staff of gold out in front of them.

Domri spread his arms. “L-look. I’m strong enough, right? I’m strong enough to fight.” He backed away a step, nearly tripping over Chokki’s arm. “I’m not like them. I can-”

The skeleton lashed out with its staff, knocking Domri’s axe out of his hands. Domri looked dumbfounded at where the weapon had fallen. A second later cold metal fingers clamped down on his jaw and jerked his face back around to face the skeleton.

Domri cried in surprise. A quick but pathetic sound that he was, for the briefest second, glad his comrades weren’t alive to hear.

“Let me go, you-”

The hands were cold

The hands were cold, and the cold seeped into Domri’s throat. His chest. His stomach.

“S-stop!” He grabbed the eternal’s arm to yank it off. These things were flimsy, right? He’d watched Revka rip half a dozen limbs out today, and he beat her at arm-wrestling all the time.

The cold flooded his fingers. His palms. His arms. They went numb.

Domri tried to shout. Someone would hear. Someone had to hear and come help him. The eternal squeezed, and only a gasp came out.

Walk. He had to planeswalk away. He could escape, and find more of his friends.

Domri’s knees gave out. He dipped down an inch, but the eternal held him upright.

He could fix this. He could make this right. Hadn’t he done right?

Pain was building in Domri’s chest. A crushing pain. A boot pressing the breath out of his lungs and into the eternal. His body sagged further, and his head lolled to the side. He saw the street. Bodies. His clan and the ones in tattered cloaks and hoods. Boars rooted around the corpses, snuffling and chewing.

Domri reached out to the rubble. To the dirt. The mana wouldn’t come to him. He tried to think of Ilharg, but in his mind the boar-god twisted into a shadow with horns and wings who just laughed.

Then the dragon was gone, and his head was full of light. Light that sang and hushed and went dark, dark, darker, darker, darker and quiet.

It was alright. It was alright. Just another burying, wasn’t it? Just another trial He would be fine. He would see the jungle again. He would see what he could turn Ravnica into. A good place. A green place. He just had to

“Even the Swine” is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

#mtg fan fiction #mtg #war of the spark #domri rade #ravnica

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desdemonafictional · 3 years

Text

The Erl King

To begin with, it’s important you know that the roads in Drusselstein did not get paved until 2003, when the project was undertaken by some private investors interested in building an export market in the USA. As of 2012, five percent of the country’s population owned one hundred percent of the country’s automobiles. Forty years ago, it could still have passed for a medieval kingdom.

It was 1976, and the carriage made a heavy thudding sound on the shadowy ground as it lurched over half buried trees and washed out gullies. The driver was a Doofenshmirtz man, his expression comfortably grim as he urged the rented nags over various obstacles. They made decent time, although the horses were as old as they were ungainly—domesticated animals do not favor the forests of Drusselstein. Wild animals don’t particularly care for them either, but those don’t have much of a choice.

High above them, the white half globe of the moon flickered between withering leaves. It was autumn, and the man’s family had been journeying to the capital to apply for yet another loan, before the year dwindled down to nothing. Prospects so far remained grim.

The wagon contained five bodies, four human. There was a dog, the man and his wife, and two boys. They had started off from the capital when the sun was high in the sky, and the man had silently refused equally silent requests to pause for the night at an inn at the border of the forest. It was common knowledge that wood trolls were attracted to the sound of carriage wheels after night fall, but the village of Gimmelshtump was only an hour away once you passed the tree line, and the man had not been in the mood to let some trolls that might or might not even be in this region of the forest dictate his actions.

He was, in addition to simply being a man, a Drusselstenian man. This meant that he was never entirely unarmed when it came to the monsters of the countryside.

In the back of the carriage—more of a covered wagon, really—the man’s oldest son sat with his hands cinched around his knees. He had spent a hefty chunk of his relatively short life as a lawn gnome—and would spend more, most likely, if his father’s business with the bank had gone as badly as it sounded—which gave him some familiarity with the dangers of unprotected spaces. Witches, spells, wood trolls, der kinderlumper, so on and so forth. He was eleven years old, and he was fairly certain that he’d like to live to be twelve regardless of how much he did not want to see Big Black Boots Boris on Monday. Driving through the forest at night seemed to be a good way to make sure neither ever happened.

His name was Heinz, which is usually short for something else but in this case was not.

Heinz looked out the back of the carriage. It was open to the darkness, and the road wound out behind them like a pale silver thread.

Now, wood trolls. He could deal with wood trolls. Everybody knew what to do with them, and given enough preparation they’d hardly slow you down. Witches were trickier, but they didn’t usually wander the roads at night. Witches were more the house keeping types. Bats and goozims were probably more of a threat than—

Child.

Heinz let go of his knees and crawled to the edge of the wagon. He heard something, underneath the rattle of wheels and the creaking planks, like a third set of hooves. It had a ghostly uncertainty to it, not quite consistent enough for an echo and not quite solitary enough to be real. Heinz looked back at his mother, seated beside his father at the front of the wagon with her hands squarely in her lap, and bit his lip. She’d ordered him to be silent, but that was hours ago, and besides, she never remembered to give him back speaking privileges. If he didn’t carefully forget after a day or so, he’d never get to talk at all.

Child.

A sound like a voice slipped in through the cracks in the rattling carriage. Heinz jerked back from the darkness and searched wildly in every direction for the source of the sound, another traveler or perhaps a radio, and found nothing but his parents and his little brother, exactly as they were.

Heinz swallowed.

Carefully, he leaned over the back of the carriage to get a look at the ground. It was probably too much to ask for the wheels to be trailing a bell or some strange noisy junk, but he’d rather not jump to conclusions.

The wind whistled, but it was not a voice. There was nothing under the wheels.

“Child,” the darkness said, “come with me.”

Heinz toppled backwards and skittered across the bouncing wooden floor, heels pushing wildly at the planks until his back was pressed up flat against the back of his mother’s chair.

“Mama,” he hissed, eyes fixed on the featureless night beyond the bounds of their walls. “Mama there’s something out there.”

“I told you to be silent,” his mother replied. Her voice was colder than the moonlight across the dirt.

“I know, I know, but there’s something out there,” he said. “I can hear it talking.”

“How can you hear anything over the rumbling of this two bit rental,” she said, as motionless as ever. It wasn’t a question, Heinz was pretty sure of that.

“I can hear it,” he insisted, “there’s a voice, and hooves, and it wants me to go somewhere with it.”

His mother shifted. Something he’d said must have done the trick, because she turned back for a moment to glance over her shoulder at little Roger, who was sitting placidly across the carriage, staring harmlessly at nothing.

"Do you hear anything, darling?" she asked the smaller boy, a hint of reserved worry around her deep set eyes.

"No mama," Roger said.

The moon went dark behind a canopy on the road ahead. Any emotion in his mother’s face died. “There,” she said, “then there is nothing Heinz. Be silent.”

"But mama, I heard it—"

His mother snorted. “Roger heard nothing,” she said. “And elves only come for beautiful children. It is the wind in the leaves.”

And with that, she returned to her motionless vigil.

Heinz scowled at his brother. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

Roger gave him a mild look that was altogether too mature for a six-year-old’s face. “I didn’t hear anything,” he replied. “It’s late. I’m going to sleep the rest of the way.”

Roger’s meaningful look slipped right past Heinz, who was already crawling back to the end of the carriage. The younger boy gave up on further communication at that point—even at six years old, Roger was aware that his brother was by nature strange and irrational. High strung.

Heinz leaned over the edge again, this time searching the tangles of branches along the road side for a hint of motion in the darkness. The alder trees rose high and curving, and empty of everything except the wind. Heinz sighed and sat down again, resting his forehead against the sill. Maybe it was nothing.

“Child.”

Heinz froze.

“You, dear child.”

He twisted his head. “Roger,” he hissed, “Roger do you hear that?”

His brother only made an irritated six-year-old noise and rolled over onto his side, firmly avoiding the problem. No help from that quarter, then. Heinz took a deep breath and turned back to the window.

Out in the inky night, he could make out the shadowy figure of what might have been a mounted rider in the tangle of the undergrowth, moving with eerie speed through the dense brush.

“You, dear child,” it called, “come, go with me.”

Heinz leaned out the window. “I’m sorry mister,” he called out, only a little louder than the sounds of the carriage. “My brother is sleeping, I don’t think he wants to go anywhere with you!”

The shadow figure’s horse balked, danced sideways, and then ducked gracefully out onto the piecemeal illumination of the road.

“I’m sorry,” the rider said, a new and uncertain note in its echoing voice. “Who?”

The rider, as best Heinz could see, was striking and male, and wore in his long knotted hair a spired crown with peaks like the knobs of old branches. His face was a dark pane of shadows, with glinting pinpricks of light where the eyes were—should be, Heinz amended uneasily. He wasn’t certain.

“Roger,” he answered, dutifully. “My brother. He’s not interested, um, please try back some other night?”

The black horse tossed its head, a mane like cobwebs fluttering against the night. The rider cantered forward, slipping into a more casual distance, head tilted curiously. Closer up, he was more strange than frightening. Heinz had always found that things were less frightening up close, where you could see the seams. Take wildcats for example. Way less scary when they weren’t stalking you through the underbrush.

“Ah,” the rider said, peering past Heinz into the dim space of the wagon. “I didn’t know she had a son.”

“What?” said Heinz. He started to build up some indignation, but then, why bother, he’d been mistaken for a servant before. He went with the more important question. “Do you know my mother?”

The rider regarded him silently for a moment, and then inclined his head. The wicked peaks of his thorny crown glinted. “I am the Erl King,” he said.

“A king?” Heinz repeated, scrambling up over the back of the wagon. He perched there, as close as he could get to the rider. “Can you give my father a loan? Or are you a poor king? My father is a poor baron, that’s what he says.”

“I am rich,” the Erl King said, “but I have more valuable boons than money to grant men. Power, talent, charms, a really excellent peach cobbler recipe—”

“Oh,” sighed Heinz. “He doesn’t want any of that.”

The Erl King cleared his throat. Or whatever passed for a throat. “Right. Ah. So. Come, dear child, go with me.”

Heinz frowned. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

The king reached back like he was rubbing his neck with one twisted hand. “Er. Come away with me.”

“Come away where?”

“To… my kingdom?”

“Oh.” Heinz paused, took that in for a moment. “What, like on a vacation?”

“…Sure. A lengthy… holiday.”

“Gosh, let me tell mama, she wants to go on a vacation so badly, this is great.”

“No, no, hold on,” the Erl King cut in hastily, “not your family. Just you.”

“Me?” Heinz said.

“You.”

Heinz considered this. After a moment, he glanced back at his brother, sleeping placidly with his knees pressed up against the back of their parents’ seats. Something clicked into place.

“But,” Heinz said slowly, “elves only take beautiful children. You are an elf, aren’t you?”

“I am something of that nature, yes.”

“So… why me?”

The Erl King blinked—you could tell because the twin liquid pinpricks of his eyes darkened for the flash of a second. He trotted forward again, horse keeping effortless pace with the rumbling wagon. He leaned in, over the neck of his mount, and peered at Heinz. On the lit pane of his cheekbone, Heinz could barely make out a twisting curling pattern, like the limbs of a very old tree.

“Men have such strange concepts of beauty,” the Erl King murmured. “Child, you are not like them.”

Heinz’s spine stiffened. “I am too! I’m just like everyone else!”

“No,” the Erl King replied, “you really are not.”

“I’m going back in the wagon,” Heinz threatened, throwing a leg over the wall just to demonstrate how serious he was.

The king didn’t seem particularly worried. “You have talent, dear child. Much talent. Come away with me, and I will show you how to make the most of that—my kingdom is hungry for artists, you would never be without admirers.”

“What--Me?”

“There will be dancing,” the Erl King went on, casually, “and there is always food, lovely endless food the likes of which you will never taste elsewhere. I have daughters who would play with you, any game you like. We have many beautiful old things that need to be fixed. You could be very useful to us. We would be so very grateful.”

“Dancing?” Heinz echoed, a little bit behind the curve. “Like—for fun?”

“You enjoy dancing,” the Erl King said, and it wasn’t a question.

Heinz glanced around, nervously, but no one was listening to him. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Come away with me,” the king said, offering one knotted dark hand towards the boy. “No one will tell you to stop breathing so loudly, or to be still, and you will always have a bed.”

“Um,” said Heinz. “That sounds really great, but—”

He looked again over his shoulder, at the shapes of his family in the darkness. He knew enough at age eleven to know that he wasn’t happy, and that maybe he had never been. Other people were happy, even Roger seemed happy enough. Kids at school. Uncles. Dogs. If it was possible for them, then why not him too?

The hand waited, extended patiently into the void between the monstrous horse and the creaking wagon. Heinz considered it. He had heard a little bit about elves, just enough to know that people didn’t like them very much. They took children. Well, people also didn’t like him much, and at least this elf was asking first.

Heinz sighed. “I’m sorry, your highness. I can’t go with you.”

The Erl King retracted his hand. “Dear child, you can’t be serious.”

Heinz gestured helplessly toward his family’s vague shapes. “I can’t, I—I already ran away once, I had to come back. They need me.”

The Erl King regarded him with his strange eyes, black and hooded. “They don’t love you,” he observed, a touch reproachfully.

Heinz flattened his lips, stared into the empty darkness. “I can make them,” he said.

The fairy horse tossed its head and stamped, losing distance as the wagon rattled on. The Erl King regarded Heinz with something almost like sadness. An alien, curious sadness.

“I only offer,” he said, finally. “I cannot take you by force.”

Heinz shivered. “Thanks for the offer, then, your majesty. I appreciate the thought.”

The king inclined his head.

Half an hour later, the wagon arrived in the village of Gimmelshtump, wheels shaking ominously on their posts. The man and his wife went to unload their dog and their children and bring them inside the house, only to find their eldest son huddled at the back of the contraption where the windchill bit hardest. His skin was paler than the fading moonlight, and worryingly cold to the touch. The man and his wife exchanged a glance, lifted up their son, and silently carried him to his small bedroom.

In a day or so, the fever passed, and the boy survived.

#phineas and ferb #the original tumblr mirror is broken somehow so....#and it was on the wrong blog anyway so let's fix that

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cloudbattrolls · 4 years

Text

Gratuitous Monster Fight

Claire’s Forest | Near Future | Two Supernatural Weirdos

The wind rustles the leaves on the forest’s branches, and small animals skitter unseen in the underbrush. Moonlight filters down between the trees, dappling the grass in green and pink. The distant lights of hives glow, signaling the presence of the few trolls who live among the greenery.

“This is INCREDIBLY stupid!”

The voice of someone both annoyed and for whatever reason, mightily offended, drifts up from some distance between the lights of the hives.

It belongs to Epsilo Volant, scientist and violetblood. Broad of body and face with wavy hair, his scowl could curdle milk and probably some cheese as well. His fins flick in agitation as he struggles with a piece of technology, pointing it and its long antennae in a dozen different directions.

“Why won’t it pick up the signal? I had everything calibrated properly.”

“Well, I’m no expert, but perhaps you made a mistake somewhere.”

The man bares his sharp teeth, both startled and annoyed by the sudden voice that belongs to someone he can’t see and had no idea was even there.

“Who are you? Show yourself.”

“What a forthright sort of fellow you are. You’re that BP chap who mods the server, if I’m not mistaken.”

“My name is Epsilo Volant.” He replies, less on guard but just as irate, putting the remote control away in his sylladex and getting out his harpoon. “I think I deserve yours in return. Come out where I can see you.”

He feels a breath on the back of his neck, but what troll has breath so chill and dry? A fellow seadweller’s would have more moisture in it. And why can’t he hear their breathing? How did they sneak up on him?

He steps forward and turns around, greeted by a wide grin of fangs sharper than his, all tapered to needle points without even any molars, and bright green pupils.

Then he blinks, annoyed at himself for how his hands tightened around his weapon. It’s just the jade from Claire’s party, and their teeth can’t really be that sharp. He must be seeing things.

Yet their eyes are undoubtedly odd.

“Just call me Tuuya.” They say, examining their claws as if bored by him. “Everyone else does.”

“Well, mix Tuuya - ” He says, not bothering to hide his disdain. “ - why are you hanging around offering unwanted commentary on my work?”

“Oh, I was just coming over to visit Claire, but I saw you puttering about and I was curious! What were you up to, I asked myself? Something devious, or something helpful?”

“I’m testing the range of a tracker for the Enkeli child. I need to focus on that. Good night.”

As they shrug and turn to go, the wind blows especially hard and the jade’s lean frame is pushed forward just enough to tip them over a protruding tree root and into a low hanging branch.

They pop back up again almost immediately, clicking their tongue, then notice the seadweller staring at them.

Their face, which as they run a hand over it, realize is cut open and showing the tips of white, gleaming worms. They quickly cover them with a palm.

“It’s none of your business?”

They try, tone far more hopeful than it is forceful.

“What is that?” The seadweller says, attention now fully focused on them.

“Absolutely nothing.” They go on in the same halfhearted tone of denial.

“It was white. It didn’t move like blood, either. Are you a mutant?”

They snort.

“If only. Look, I know you’re a science lad, but trust me when I say you’ll be happier not knowing.”

There’s a light of curiosity in the violet’s eyes, in the arch of his fins, his posture as he holds the harpoon. Tuuya’s seen that look on countless faces throughout the sweeps, and they sigh again.

“You’re not going to let this go, are you. You do realize Claire knows me, she won’t be happy if you attack me.”

“I just need a sample.” He replies, all superior confidence. “If you give it to me, we can end this peacefully.”

“Well, at least you ask. That puts you a rung above the medic, I suppose. Answer’s still no.”

They leap out of the way from where the harpoon would’ve taken the rainbow drinker in the chest, and it impales itself halfway through their arm instead. They rip it out with their other one and shove it in the ground hard enough to send dirt flying in a geyser.

Worms drop from the wound, and Tuuya leaps for the boy -

The animal, silvery gray with pinkish violet fins growing from its body, snaps at them with slavering jaws. They skid, narrowly avoiding the chomping teeth, and laugh as they leap up and land on a tree branch.

“Aren’t you something! I wasn’t sure the were-kind still walked Alternia. I’m surprised no one’s taken a sample from you.”

The huge hyena - much bigger than any non lusus kind they’ve ever seen - rears up on its hind legs and puts its front paws against their tree, glaring up at them with violet eyes.

“In the spirit of fairness, I’ll admit I am a rainbow drinker. And I’m far more trouble than you’re worth. I’d rather not get a hangnail whacking you for being naughty, so change back and walk away now. Last chance.”

The wound in their arm is annoying, as was losing some worms, but it’s already closing - they drank blood before they came.

Epsilo responds by jumping up and breaking their branch with a swat of his paws, and both fall with a mighty thud.

Tuuya gets whacked in the face by the broken branch as they land, allowing the werebeast to pin them in the chest with a heavy paw. Epsilo puts his other one on their wounded arm as he bares his teeth, breath smelling of fish as the disoriented drinker blinks and shakes their head.

“Get some mints, dear.”

Then they focus, smiling as worms swarm from the half-healed harpoon gash and chew through the furry leg, swarming over to the other, as the feliform chitters in pain and confusion. He shakes his legs in a vain attempt to get the parasites off -

Tuuya shoves their wounded arm down his throat, rearranging the worms inside them to narrow its form to fit, choking the creature.

“Bad kitty. Stop, and I won’t put them inside you.”

He bites off their arm in response, chews it up, and tosses it away. Then he retches.

The drinker jumps to their feet and hisses, flaring their glow on blindingly bright. As he retches and whines, eyes shut tightly, they tackle him. With one arm, it’s not so effective - but his front legs weaken as the worms relentlessly chew through skin and muscle, almost down to the bone now.

The striped beast falls back into the grass, and the drinker plants a foot on him.

“You’re going to stop now, before I start ripping parts out of you, and unlike me, you don’t grow them back. I can stop eating into your flesh any time. Just give me some sort of sign you surrender.”

A silence passes in which he opens his eyes to glare at them hatefully, and violet blood soaks his fur, running into his chest and onto the grass.

Finally he looks away, huffing softly.

The drinker’s worms flow back into them in a squirming mass. The ones wriggling at their damaged clavicle reproduce rapidly - more and more worms split off, weaving around each other to form facsimiles of muscles and joints. Bone regrows from the spot, rebuilding in rapid rows of cells. Once those form, dark gray skin begins to coalesce over them. A cover for the parasites, protection from the elements.

A semblance of trollhood.

The werehyena changes back, arms still bleeding and clothes ripped. Tuuya takes some bandages out of their sylladex and holds them out.

Epsilo flinches back at the gesture, then looks annoyed and sullen.

“You do not frighten me.”

They give him a sardonic smile, laying the bandages down on the grass and stepping back.

He takes out his own, and they raise a finger.

“Are yours specially treated to stop and disinfect drinker-inflicted blood flow? Use mine, boy. I keep them for idiots like you.”

“Why are you helping me? To cover your tracks? This could be a trick.”

He reaches for them anyway with careful movements, clearly trying to not let on how much it hurts.

“It could.” The drinker agrees. “But it’s not. I don’t care if you tell Claire anyway - she knows what I am. I wonder, does she know what you are?”

The flattening of his fins is all the answer they need.

“Ah, so you don’t trust her. Cheer up - at least you’re a real troll some of the time. I can only do a fabulous impression.”

“What are you?” He asks, applying the bandages to his wounds and immediately giving a soft sigh in relief. Tuuya has to admire his stubbornness, cursing it at the same time.

“A drinker parasite swarm that acts like a troll.” They reply, examining their newly-formed claws again. Good, everything grew back properly.

They’re thirsty, though. Volant’s beast blood was just barely usable, given he’s a shapeshifter, but not as good as if he’d been in troll form.

“That’s all you get, I’m afraid. I’m very bored of being studied these nights. I could be playing lusus passing instead, which is so much more fun.”

His look of blank befuddlement makes the worm monster laugh.

“What? It’s a grand old time. Give it a go!”

“You make no sense.” He mutters, wrapping more bandages around himself.

“I don’t have to.” They retort breezily. “I’m almost two hundred, I got a pardon for it.”

“You don’t need to keep up a troll facade. Why bother now?”

“Blood’s not the only thing I think about, goodness. You do smell delicious, though.”

He shudders but bares his teeth.

“Don’t even try it.”

They walk over, arms crossed, needle teeth showing in a wide grin, and look down at the sitting troll, wounded.

They lower themself, crouching, only a foot from him. His fins are pinned against his head even as he keeps his fangs bared.

“I could rip open your throat and drink you until there was nothing left but a shriveled carcass to feed the roots.” They say, voice soft and almost gentle, if it weren’t for the edge of it; a sharpness that could slice through solid rock.

“I could eat you from the inside out, have you watch your own body wither before your very eyes, helpless to do anything but bleed.”

Their voice switches to a more normal speaking tone.

“But I’m not going to do that, because you’re just a stupid boy, and hopefully this was a valuable learning experience, hmm?”

He only nods.

“Good! I’m glad we’re on the same page. Get yourself cleaned up, you’re lucky there’s no native predators in these woods.”

The big seadweller mutters something about invasive species, and the drinker has to laugh.

#epsilo will do anything For Science #and tuuya is horrible #epsilo after this: i want that thing but also that thing gives me the heebie jeebies #cloud writes #etuuya vannyn #epsilo volant #cw body horror #cw worms #i did love writing the details of how tuuya regrows though

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halothenthehorns · 4 years

Text

THE MAN WITH TWO FACES

Remus took a deep, shaky breath, and stalling a bit said, "there's not too much of this left. Your first year should be almost over."

"I sure hope so," Lily muttered, "I can't take too many more heart attacks."

Harry just smiled at them, but warned, "I can tell you now, you're probably not going to like this chapter. I can't remember what all Quirrell says, but I know it made me angry."

"Great," Sirius rolled his eyes, "something else to look forward to."

The man inside was Professor Quirrell. He greeted Harry very calmly, and stated that he had been wondering whether or not Harry would come down here.

"He's not stuttering," James asked in surprise.

Harry shook his head sadly, feeling like he should pop himself in the head and saying, "No, he was faking it, I should have remembered that."

Harry insisted he thought that it had been Snape, and while Quirrell agreed that Snape seemed the type, what with him swooping around the place like a giant bat,

All three boys couldn't help but snort at this, how many times had they called him that?

who would suspect the stuttering Professor? Harry insisted that it must have been Snape, he tried to kill him! Quirrell just laughs and says it was he who tried, and would have if Hermione hadn't knocked into him during that Quidditch game.

Lily muttered something incomprehensible, she felt like an idiot for not noting that when the book had mentioned it.

Hermione had broken his eye contact that he was using to curse Harry, as well as Snape's who was trying to mutter a countercurse trying to save Harry.

"Bless my soul," James breathed, looking like someone had just punched him in the gut.

"You've got to be joking," Sirius demanded.

Remus was just sitting there, staring blankly down at the page.

Then Lily suddenly let out a whoop of joy, saying smugly, "You see, I told you he..." then she trailed off, looking suddenly confused as the others.

"If Snape was trying to save you, if he didn't hate you like we thought he hated James, then what was all that crap all year?" Sirius demanded.

"Oh he hates me," Harry disagreed, "but not enough to want me dead."

"That, actually made me feel better," James said, blinking spastically in surprise.

"I can hardly believe it," Remus agreed.

Sirius snorted, but even he couldn't think of anything to say just then. Severus Snape had actually tried to save Harry Potter's life? What was this world coming to?

Lily looked like she was about to start crying all over again, but they were tears of joy this time.

Shaking off the last visages of shock he had, Remus now read on quickly.

Harry was still in shock as Quirrell laughed at the absurdity of anyone trying to save Harry, when Quirrell was going to kill him now.

They had all listened to this revelation in stunned silence, but at this last sentence any happy feelings were tossed out of the room, to be replaced by protective anger.

"You throw one curse at him, and no cell in Azkaban will stop me killing you," Sirius vowed.

"That's being kind," James snorted, a manic look gleaming in his eyes, "I can think of much worse things to do to him rather than killing."

"Sign me up for that," Remus and Lily agreed.

Quirrell snapped his fingers, and ropes sprang up out of nowhere and tied themselves around Harry.

"Dammit," Lily snarled, "he's actually competent?"

"That's beyond a normal magical level," Remus said, voice edging into panic. "Wandless magic like that, the only wizard I can think of with that kind of ability is Dumbledore."

"Or Dumbledore's opposite," James breathed.

Sirius whipped his head around and looked at James like he'd grown a second head. "What do you mean by that? Harry would have noticed if Voldemort was there."

Harry groaned suddenly, pressing a fist to his temple, but quickly shook it off, sitting back up and saying, "I think he is there, but I can't remember, he's hiding or someone," he trailed off again, losing colour by the second.

"That's enough Harry," James said at once, then he turned to Remus and said, "keep reading, it should explain soon."

Harry was still trying to process this, demanding to know if it had been Quirrell who had let the troll in on Halloween. He admitted he had, stating he had a gift with trolls,

"Is it because you act like them," James grumbled.

and that he had let it in so that he could get a proper look at what had been guarding the Stone. Sadly that hadn't worked out, nor had the troll killed Harry, and the dog hadn't even managed to tear Snape's leg off.

"We're all so sorry for your failed plan," Remus hissed. He didn't particularly like the mental

image of Fluffy attacking Snape in particular, it brought back too many nightmares of him once almost doing the same.

Then he told Harry to stop asking questions so that he could have a proper look at this mirror.

"Mirror?" They all asked in surprise.

Remus didn't bother to think on it, but kept going.

Only then did Harry look around and find the Mirror of Erised in the same room with them.

"Dumbledore put something up to," James repeated from, looking confused. "Is this what Hagrid meant?"

"I don't get it," Sirius said, "the mirror shows your deepest desire. So anyone whose deepest desire was the Stone could look into it, and what, find out where it's really hidden?"

Remus snorted, saying, "I hope so. That means that it's actually hidden somewhere else, and then Quirrell will have to go off and find it there."

"All that set up, and it was never even down there," Lily rolled her eyes, still a little irked at the whole situation.

Harry set his mind then, determined to keep Quirrell talking and keep his concentration off of that mirror.

"I'd rather you do the opposite," Lily huffed, "let him find the Stone and walk away. He might forget you're there."

"Then I'll have come all this way for nothing?" Harry said in surprise.

"We'd rather you didn't come all that way at all," Remus sighed.

"But boy are we impressed you did," James added on at Harry's rather hurt look.

He said the first thing that came to mind, which was that he'd seen Quirrell and Snape in the forest. Quirrell admitted that Snape had been on to him by this time, wanting to know how far he'd gotten.

"Which reminds me," Sirius said, "what did Snape mean by Hocus Pocus? Quirrell's wasn't an anti-defence spell."

"I've no idea," Harry said honestly, feeling that no one had ever explained that one to him.

Snape had tried to frighten the information out of Quirrell, which he wasn't able to do, because he had Voldemort on his side.

"I'll give him that," Remus sighed, "even Snape isn't as scary as him."

"I'm just impressed this nit called him Voldemort," Sirius said in mild shock. "Normally his

followers call him the Dark Lord, that was pretty bold of him."

"Maybe he's just preening cause he thinks he's about to win," James shrugged, still not really interested in whatever this loon had to say so long as he stayed away from his son.

Quirrell turned his attention back to the mirror then, claiming he could see himself in it, presenting the Stone, presenting it to his master, but he still had no idea where it was.

"Well that's as tricky as it gets," James laughed. "His deepest desire is to give it to Voldemort. So long as that's true, he'll never find its real hiding place."

"Ingenious when you think about it," Sirius agreed, "because your deepest desire would be what you actually do with the Stone. Not the actual Stone, therefore its location."

"Only Dumbledore," Remus said in happy exasperation.

Harry was still talking, bringing up that he thought Snape hated him, which Quirrell

agreed that this was true. Snape had known Harry's father in school, and they hated each other, but that didn't mean Snape wanted Harry dead.

"I'll take that," James said with a weak smile.

Harry reminded that he had heard Quirrell sobbing in an empty classroom, and that finally broke into Quirrell's calm. He looked almost frightened now as he admitted that it was hard for him to always do what his master wanted, and Harry blurted out that Voldemort had been in the classroom with him!

"No way!" All four of adults said at once.

"It's not possible," Remus added on, "Dumbledore was still at the school at the time, Voldemort could never get in."

Lily and James shivered in disgust at the very idea Harry was that close to such a lunatic.

Quirrell didn't seem phased by the question, saying that Voldemort was everywhere he was. How he'd met him while out traveling, how he'd been younger then, with foolish ideas about how good and evil worked.

Sirius groaned, saying, "do we really have to hear the ravings of Death Eater lunatics? I got more than enough of that at my parent's place."

"Sorry Sirius," Remus said, and he sounded like he really meant it. "I'm not skipping."

Voldemort had showed him a different way though, and Quirrell had served him ever since. However when he did let his master down, Voldemort would punish him severely.

"Hope it hurt," James muttered, any kind of pain he more than deserved for what he had tried to do to his son.

He had punished Quirrell quite harshly by deciding to keep a closer eye on him, when Quirrell had failed to steal the Stone from Gringotts. Harry felt like an idiot then, remembering now how he'd seen Quirrell that day in Diagon Alley.

"Yes, but I would have never thought anything of it," Lily sighed, "teachers come and go there as much as anyone else."

"Though I do hope he explains how he broke into Gringotts," Remus scowled, "as that is

supposed to be impossible."

"Don't hold your breath," Sirius muttered, "probably some Dark Magic, or maybe a bribe to one of the Goblins told him it had been removed or something."

Quirrell then turns his attention back to the mirror, and curses that he still doesn't understand what to do, should he break it?

"I feel like that wouldn't actually work," James said, a small smile gracing his features.

"But please, do try," Remus said happily, "that way the Stone will be lost forever."

Harry felt his mind flying, as he realized something. What he wanted most in that moment,

"At the moment?" Lily asked, "I don't think you get to pick your deepest desire. It's simply what it is."

"Maybe," Remus said slowly, "well, it is called the Mirror of Desire. Perhaps you can, in a sense, simply see what you desire at will. Dumbledore was the one that said it had to be your deepest."

"Dumbledore," James said the name like he'd never heard such a thing in his life.

"Alright James?" Sirius asked.

"Dumbledore showed Harry how to use the mirror," he said, running his hand through his hair in agitation, "and the last thing he said, next time you see it you'll know how to use it." He shook his head, he didn't believe in coincidences. Not one bit. "It's almost like he knew Harry-" but then he cut himself ,off, looking about the room like he expected someone to tell him he was being daft.

Instead, they were looking at him like he had just made absolute sense, and they looked furious.

"Are you telling me," Lily said slowly, "that Dumbledore intended for Harry to do this?" She had been thinking this same thing a little earlier, but had hardly been able to fully form the thought, it was just too horrible to consider!

"Not possible," Remus said, though his tone wasn't very believable. After all, if the Headmaster could be fooled by an idiot like Quirrell, what else could he be up to?

"But there's too much of a coincidence," Lily said, beginning to name the tasks out loud. "Hagrid giving Harry a musical instrument for Christmas, Dumbledore surely knew Harry and Hagrid were friends, could he have suggested a gift like that? The flying key room, testing his skills as a Seeker? The chess room, where one of his good friends could test his skills? I'll give you the rest are questionable, but the others just line up to well. To be perfectly honest considering the magic those teachers are capable of, I'd almost say it was easy!"

Sirius was looking about the room like he expected someone to say 'got ya' any second. When no one did he finally said, "I'll agree with you Lily," she turned to face him, because his tone didn't really match what he said, which made sense when he continued on, "but I think you're still a little sore at him for leaving him at the Dursley's. I am too, don't get me wrong on that, but come on. The man's had nothing to do with Harry's life since he dropped him off there. What possible reason could he have for 'testing' him and his friends?"

Remus sighed, rubbing his temple, before glancing over at Harry and asking, "Got any input?"

Harry shrugged, saying blankly, "I, yeah I feel like Mum might be right, but I kind of agree with Sirius, I don't know."

The momentary shock and thrill at Harry actually referring to her as his mother, out loud like that, actually did distract her enough that she really did decide she could let this matter go for now.

Remus nodded, and by now he had come to the conclusion Harry's first instinct was usually right. Still, with nothing to do in the meantime while they all pondered this, he kept reading.

was to get the Stone before Quirrell did. He knew that if he saw himself in front of the mirror now, he could find the Stone first, but how could he do it without Quirrell realizing what he was doing? Quirrell was continuing to speak aloud, admitting he didn't know what to do, and asked his Master for help.

"Great, the nutter talks to himself now," Sirius said absently, all of them who weren't reading were still only half listening, still stuck on the oddity that was their old headmaster.

Then a voice came from seemingly nowhere, whispering to use Harry.

"What?" James yelped, coming out of it first.

"Remus, read that again," Lily said, eyes almost falling out of her head she was so wide eyed.

Remus complied, and they all sat there like stunned fish for a moment.

"How could that have happened?" Harry asked, rather concerned by this reaction.

"I've no idea," James said.

"And that's why it's so bad," Sirius agreed.

"And if none of us knows how to do that," Remus muttered, "then this clearly isn't anything

good."

"My question," Lily said, ignoring how high pitched her voice is, "was who said that?"

Remus glanced back down at the page with ice cold fear, forcing himself to read.

Quirrell dutifully turned his attention on Harry and told him to come stand in front of the mirror. Harry did as told, and looked upon his reflection, which smiled back at him.

"Did that happen before when you saw us?" James asked, not really curious to know the answer, just trying to keep himself in the here and now so he didn't freak out that Harry was now in such immediate danger.

"No," Harry answered honestly.

As he watched, his reflection self-put his hand in his pocket and came out with a ruby red Stone. Then he winked and put it back, and as he did so, Harry felt a weight fall into his own real pocket.

"You're joking," Sirius groaned, "please tell me that was a really awful joke in which Harry now has the thing that lunatic wants, in his pocket."

Remus didn't even glance up at him, but shook his head swiftly from side to side as an answer before blasting on.

Harry now had the Philosopher's Stone.

"But how?" Lily couldn't help but blurt out.

"Really, scary, over the top magic," James grumbled, only having a few vague ideas himself.

Quirrell demanded to know what Harry saw, and he quickly lies as he says that he sees himself winning the House Cup for Gryffindor.

Sirius couldn't help it, he snorted in amusement, saying, "Come on, you could lie better than that."

"I was under a lot of pressure," he defended, mentally adding he had no desire to share what his real deepest desire was with that man.

Quirrell pushed him out of the way again, and Harry considers whether he dare make a run for it.

"Yes, please dare to," Remus said fervently.

Then the voice returned, again from nowhere,

"Dammit," Sirius groaned, this Dark Magic, whatever it was doing this, just kept getting worse and worse.

saying that Harry was lying.

"How, what-" Lily spluttered.

"I don't know, and I won't if you keep asking me that," Remus snapped at her.

At Lily's hurt look, he said, "Sorry, we're all a bit on edge."

Lily nodded, accepting the apology.

Quirrell rounded back on Harry and demanded to know what Harry saw. Then the voice requested that it wanted to speak to Harry, face to face.

"Don't want that. Absolutely the last thing I will ever want," James was muttering.

All four of them couldn't get the idea out of their head, Harry was in the same room as Voldemort! It was impossible, but...

Quirrell turned on the spot and began unwinding his turban,

Harry knew, instinctively somehow, he did not like what Remus was about to say next, if the reaction to feeling like screaming meant anything.

and sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head was a face,

"A face?" James said faintly.

"Out of the back of..." Lily whispered.

"I'm going to be sick." Sirius groaned, and the green colouring made it seem like he wasn't

kidding about that.

"He, what, merged bodies with..." Remus tried to say, trailing off in confusion or horror they

didn't know.

"That's not, he's not even-" Lily stuttered.

"Explains the magic beyond Quirrell's level," Sirius muttered bitterly. He felt itchy all over, like he needed a hot bath just from hearing about this.

"It gets weirder as you go on," Harry said, rubbing his temple again in agitation. His scar wasn't hurting him now, but he seemed to know that it was about to start hurting soon.

Remus wouldn't have believed that, until his twenty year old cub fell into the kitchen yesterday. While the baby he knew and loved sat in Sirius' lap.

that was the palest of whites with dark red eyes and snake like nostrils.

"There's a nightmare I'll never forget," James said in disgust, he really wanted to go wash himself in pure soap.

The face looked on at Harry, whispering that this was what he'd been reduced to, only a vapour,

"I might be fascinated if that wasn't the most twisted, darkest thing I've ever heard in my life," Remus said in disgust.

that he only really had form when he shared another person's body,

"Great," Lily snapped scornfully, "so our plan should be that no one ever wears something that covers up their head, ever again."

but he has always found someone willing and able to share. How he's always convinced people to drink unicorn blood, like Quirrell had been doing that night in the forest.

"I am going to be sick," Sirius vowed.

Once he found the Stone, he wouldn't even need that, all Harry had to do was hand it over.

"Run," they all whispered, that thought the only thing any of them could really focus on anymore.

Harry tried to run then, and the face merely cackled, saying that Harry may as well save his life and join Voldemort, or he'd go the same way as his parents, begging for their life.

"LIAR!" Remus and Sirius snarled, angrier than they had been yet.

Harry could feel blood pounding in his ears, this was the part he had been remembering, he hated listening to someone say anything about his parents, but he also feared that the pain would be coming soon.

Harry shouted that this was a lie!

His parents beamed at him, pleased to know that if Harry knew anything about them, it was this one truth.

Quirrell had been turning on the spot to make sure Harry stayed in the faces line of sight.

"I might laugh if that wasn't the most disturbing sentence I've ever heard in my life," James said faintly.

Voldemort seemed to be enjoying himself now as he taunted Harry, saying that he had he had killed his father first,

Remus voice almost stuttered out, he really didn't want to be the one to read this.

Then James surprised them all by puffing out his chest and saying, "I'm not surprised one bit. He'd have to kill me to get to you two."

Lily's lower lip was quivering, while she didn't appreciate that statement one bit, she wasn't about to argue it either.

"Do you want me to read?" Harry offered, when it seemed Remus might pass out.

"No," he said, bolstering his courage. If James and Lily could hear this without crying over it, he could certainly read it.

how he had tried to fight him off while his mother made a run for it, but she shouldn't have died, she was just protecting Harry.

"Of course I did," she hissed, her wand appearing in her hand, looking ready to curse the world any second now to protect her family.

Then he told Harry to give him the Stone, unless Harry wanted to die for nothing. Harry shouted back he never would.

"And we don't blame you one bit," Lily whispered to him.

Harry smiled around at his parents, never having been more proud to be their son then in this moment.

"Hoping that bastards done now," Sirius muttered in disgust, hearing that had been almost as bad as hearing they were dead the first time.

Harry ran back towards the door which was still on fire,

"The potion would have worn off," Lily yelped in concern.

"Would you rather he stayed in there with them? Him? How would you even..." Sirius began hotly, but faded off into mutters at the end.

Harry couldn't help but burst out laughing at him, which calmed them all down.

Since Harry was alive and laughing, and didn't have black burns all over his body from that fire, Remus read on with only medium anxiety.

but then Voldemort yelled at Quirrell to catch him.

Which immediately flew up to the highest level of anxiety it could get. Harry may be fine now, but how much had Voldemort/ Quirrell hurt him before Harry gave up the Stone?

Blinking the red vision out of his eyes, Remus quickly read.

Harry felt something catch his wrist,

"He's dead." Sirius spat, looking quite deranged at hearing anyone put their hand on his godson. "I don't care where he is right now, he is dying."

"Not going to stop you," the others agreed, privately thinking they would all help.

and the moment that happened he could feel the sharp pain returning across his scar,

Harry winced, putting his hand to his scar again, there was the pain he had been remembering.

it made his head feel like it was being cleaved open,

"Why?" Lily yelped, pushing Harry's hand out of the way so she could look him in the face,

"what spell was he doing to cause that to happen to you?"

"It wasn't a spell," Harry muttered, frustrated that he couldn't remember why this was happening, even though it felt really important.

"Keep going Remus," James said evenly, he wanted to get past this part already.

and Harry tried to pull away, and to his astonishment, Quirrell did let go.

"Who'd have thought yelling and struggling would actually work," Sirius said to himself, pleased beyond measure it had.

The pain began to dull enough that he could look around and spot Quirrell who was kneeling and looking down in surprise at his hand, which was blistering.

"I've never heard of anything like that," Remus whispered.

"Why can't he touch me?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"Don't question it, run for it," James said quickly.

Remus pushed the thought aside for now so he could read on.

Voldemort was still yelling to catch Harry, and Quirrell still obeyed, getting to his feet only to knock Harry on his back and straddle him, wrapping both burnt hands around his neck.

"Remus!" Harry yelped in shock as the book actually split down the spin as Remus ripped it.

He didn't look very sorry, looking at the remnants of the pages in his hand like they themselves were Quirrell's skull.

Lily waved her wand, and the book flew back into his grasp, completely repaired, then she

snapped at him, "What did I tell you-"

"You told Sirius he couldn't ruin the book. You didn't say anything to me," he pointed out.

"Wohoo, loophole," Sirius cackled, slapping a high five with his friend.

All four adults were still breathing more rapidly than normal, the mental image of Harry being pinned to the ground and strangled one that would leave a scar on them for the rest of their life they were sure, but the distraction had done its job.

Harry was again laughing along at these antics, safe and sound right here with them. Sirius cuddled the baby closer to him, and both of Harry's parents leaned in to their son as Remus forced himself to go on.

The pain in his scar returned, so horrible it nearly blocked everything else out, like Quirrell shouting that his hands hurt, and he couldn't hold him,

"Hope you can't heal that," Lily said nastily.

and Voldemort snapped that he should just kill him already, and so Quirrell pulled out a wand and was fixing to do just that,

Remus couldn't help but stutter over those lines, but one glance up at the black haired youth squished between his parents and he was able to finish.

but then Harry lunged forward and pressed his hands against Quirrell's face, causing a scream of pain.

"Who was screaming, you or him?" Sirius asked.

"Both of us?" Harry muttered, still rubbing his scar.

"You're rubbing that an awful lot," James frowned.

"I just remember the pain, really, really well. That's something I wouldn't like to have had back."

His parents smiled sadly down at him, but no one could really think of anything to say to that.

Quirrell got off of him and stumbled around, moaning about his now burnt face and hands, and Harry realized that Quirrell couldn't touch him without being burnt, so Harry decided he could work with that.

"Hopefully die from pain overdose," Sirius said in a chipper tone, then added on, "though that would kill my fun."

Remus' mouth twitched at that, but Sirius seemed so sincere, he decided not to ruin that comment by pointing out that this act was clearly hurting Harry as well. It wasn't hurting him now though, which gave him the strength to read.

Harry ran forward and caught hold of Quirrell's face again, hanging on for dear life as Quirrell was screaming in pain, and Harry was screaming through the pain of his scar, and Voldemort was screaming that he had to die, and someone else screaming his name...

"Oh I doubt that," James breathed.

"Help arrived, maybe Ron and Hermione," Lily offered, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

He felt his grip being torn away from Quirrell,

"Bloody hell," Sirius groaned, that wasn't a good sign, was it possible other Death Eaters had arrived?

and then Harry blacked out.

"Jeez, if you had actually stopped there-" James began, then broke off his own sentence, not even wanting to say any of those next words.

"It's okay," Harry said into the awkward silence. "I'm alright then. Nothing else happens for the rest of this year." Except going back to the Dursley's he privately added.

"Well I should hope not," Lily yelped, "isn't five deadly situations more than enough for all seven years at school!"

Harry gave her a sheepish expression, but didn't seem like he was going to answer.

Remus didn't give him the chance.

There was something gold above him, and his mind went to a Snitch. He wanted to grab it, but his arm felt weighted.

"Are you dreaming again?" Lily asked.

Harry shook his head no, smiling now. His scar, he remembered, didn't hurt anymore. The

opposite in fact, he felt quite content and happy, if a bit drowsy.

He blinked a few more times and found it wasn't a Snitch, but glasses.

"Strange indeed," Remus said, rubbing his jaw, more grateful than anything that whole ordeal seemed to be over.

"Who wears golden glasses?" Sirius asked redundantly since he knew Remus was fixing to read.

After blinking once more, the face of Albus Dumbledore swam into view.

"Oh," they all muttered in annoyance. None of them had really decided on their feelings about him just yet, this book was certainly implying a lot of bad stuff about him.

Harry tried to begin explaining at once, that Quirrell was after the Stone,

"Right to the point then," James said, frowning slightly. He really would hate it if Quirrell had gotten the Stone after all of that hard work his son did.

but Dumbledore was quick to calm him, saying that Quirrell didn't have it.

"I will admit, that's a relief," Sirius sighed.

Harry was still wound up, demanding to know who did have it then, and Dumbledore tried to relax him once more, saying he had to calm down or Madam Pomfrey would kick him

out.

"That she will," Remus actually chuckled, amazed he could feel alright again after that awful last scene.

Harry forced himself to settle and look around properly, finding himself in the hospital wing. On his bedside table was a mountain's worth of candy.

"How come you guys never gave me that much candy when I was in there?" Remus demanded, unable to hide his smile.

James snorted, saying, "Please, if we gave you candy every time you wound up there, we'd put every candy shop in the country out of business."

"You're only encouraging him," Lily reminded, "since buying that much would in fact be good for their business."

"Fine, then all of our teeth would simultaneously rot out," Sirius grinned.

"Never stopped you trying before," Remus smirked, but then he finally admitted he had let the joke drag on too long so quickly kept reading before anyone else could throw something out.

Dumbledore noticed Harry's stares, saying that these were tokens of gratification from his friends and admirers. What had happened below the castle was supposed to be a complete secret, so naturally, the whole school knew.

"Sounds about right," Sirius laughed.

"Really though," Lily asked, "what did the school know about that?"

Harry shrugged, answering, "I honestly have no idea. I never wanted to ask anyone."

He even mentioned that Fred and George had tried to send Harry a toilet seat.

They couldn't help it, all five of them cracked up laughing at that. It seemed a lifetime ago they were reading about Mrs. Weasley scolding her boys on the platform.

Sadly though, Madam Pomfrey had taken it away, claiming it wasn't hygienic.

"Killjoy," James sighed.

Harry asked how long he'd been out for, and Dumbledore replied three days.

"Three days," Lily moaned.

"If it makes you feel any better," Harry said, "that's the longest I'll ever be in the hospital wing." Then he frowned and rubbed his temple, annoyed at this random habit of his gut speaking, and his brain paying for it.

Lily looked like she dearly wanted to ask why Harry had wound up in there any other time, but felt it wasn't worth it right this moment.

He concluded that Ron and Hermione were going to be very relieved to hear Harry had awoken, but Harry went back to asking about the Stone then.

"One track mind eh?" Remus chuckled, honestly curious what had happened to it as well. His cub sure went through an awful lot of trouble to keep it safe, he did deserve to know.

Dumbledore admitted that he had arrived just in time to separate Harry from Quirrell, and Harry asked if he'd received Hermione's owl. Dumbledore says that he must have just missed it, as he'd arrived in London only to realize what was going on. He turned around at once to get rid of Quirrell.

"Okay, I'm not mad at Dumbledore any more," James sighed, he clearly had come at a time when Harry needed him, which was the most important thing to him.

"Remembered why Dumbledore was supposed to be gone so long yet?" Sirius asked.

Harry nodded brightly and said, "Oh yeah, it's because he said he flew. When he got to the

ministry though, he apperated back. I don't know how he flew, he didn't say," he trailed off with a shrug, having remembered asking him this shortly before he headed to the boats at the end of the year.

"Might have used a Thestral, like Hagrid at the beginning of the year," Lily speculated.

"We never even proved that's how Hagrid did it," Remus pointed out.

"Why would he fly anyways?" Sirius demanded, "Hagrid I can understand, but Dumbledore has every means at his disposal-"*

"Sirius," James broke him off, "let it go. We're not going to find that out."

Sirius huffed, but did indeed let the matter drop.

Dumbledore admitted that he feared he had almost been too late, and Harry begins to agree saying he couldn't have kept the Stone safe much longer, but Dumbledore corrects saying he thought he'd almost been too late to save Harry who had nearly died in trying to hold off Quirrell.

Remus shuddered in disgust. How many times was he going to have to read that?

"I guessed as much, from the way Harry was passing out," James murmured to himself, the only reason he had been able to hold himself together was because of his living son at his side now.

"Then yeah, I guess I forgive him to," the other three agreed.

Then he said that the Stone was destroyed.

"Destroyed?" Sirius said blankly, "after all that, he went and blew it up."

James snorted, asking, "Why do you assume the only way to destroy something is to blow it up?"

"That's just what came out okay, I didn't mean it literally," Sirius rolled his eyes.

Harry was astonished, asking what would happen to Nicolas Flamel, and Dumbledore seemed pleased that Harry had done this thing right.

"The thing," Lily said at once, eyes narrowing dangerously. "I think I might reconsider my

forgiveness."

"Now Lily," James began, but then she looked at him, and James quickly redirected, "keep going Remus."

Then he explained that Nicholas and his wife had set their affairs in order, and then they would indeed die.

"To be honest, I don't think I'd want to live that long anyways," Sirius said, "be bloody depressing outliving everyone you know by a couple hundred years."

Harry simply sat there, staring for some time. Dumbledore tried to explain that death was merely a new adventure. The Stone really wasn't such a good thing, as it gave man everything he would have wanted, but then again, man usually had a knack for wanting exactly what was the worst thing for them.

"Nutter, I swear," James snorted.

Harry started to ask that if the Stone was gone, then how would You-Know-Who, but Dumbledore corrected him and told him to call him Voldemort, that fear of a name will only increase his fear of the thing itself.

"Glad Dumbledore taught you that," James said proudly.

Harry corrected himself by asking if Voldemort could somehow find a way to still come back.

"I'm not even going to ask if he said 'no, of course not,'" Lily sighed, pressing her face into her hands in preparation for this answer.

Dumbledore agreed that he is still out there, biding his time, perhaps looking for another body to share,

"Well, then Lily's thing about having to show your full head should at least be applied to all future teachers," James muttered, still forcing down a shiver of disgust.

but since he wasn't really alive, he couldn't really die. He left Quirrell to die,

"Deserves it," Remus said without any remorse. None of them disagreed.

which only showed he cared as little for his followers as he did his enemies.

"You would think his followers would realize this," Sirius pointed out.

"Nah, they're too dumb to work for themselves, they need someone telling them what to do," James snickered.

Harry had only delayed his return, but if people kept on delaying forever, then perhaps he would never truly return.

"Let that be as true as it ever gets," Lily vowed, personally thinking about starting up a new

Department just for this job alone if it kept Voldemort out of their lives for good.

Harry wanted to ask another question, and Dumbledore said he would try and answer if he could, but said he may not, but promised not to lie.

"Again," Sirius snorted, thinking back to the mirror.

Harry began by saying that Voldemort had killed his mother because she had tried to stop him from killing Harry,

"Which I would do every single time forever," Lily growled, a glint of something in her eyes none of the boys had seen before this day.

but why had Voldemort gone after Harry's family in the first place?

"Yes," James said eagerly, he had been wanting to know this since the first chapter!

Dumbledore said that this was one of those questions he couldn't answer.

"Why the bloody hell not," Sirius groaned.

"Cause I was too young," Harry said sadly.

"Was?" James asked, eyeing him hopefully, "are you saying he does tell you then?"

"I," he hesitated for a moment, then accepting the pain that was coming he spoke with his gut, "yeah, I think he does." The pain flowed through him, and he brushed it off as soon as he could, allowing Remus to go on.

That Harry was too young, but perhaps when he was older, then he'd tell him.

"I'm pretty sure we all hate to hear that right now," Lily muttered.

Feeling disgruntled, Harry decided to move on to another question, why hadn't Quirrell been able to touch him?

"Yeah," James sighed, "I hope he bleeding answers that question."

Dumbledore happily answered that one, saying that when Harry's mother died for him, it left a mark of protection. Not anything visible, but something he would carry with him forever.

The longer Remus kept reading, the more curious his tone became. This was something he'd never heard of, and he still loved learning new things.

Quirrell, having shared a soul with Voldemort, could not touch Harry, because the mark that was left on Harry, something so truly good, meant someone like Quirrell could not touch Harry without feeling great pain.

Lily hadn't realized she was crying until she blinked, a tear traced her cheek down her face. Then she saw that Harry was smiling at her, and she whispered, happier then she could ever remember being, "so I saved you?"

Harry nodded, unable to speak himself.

The three boys exchanged happy smiles, all thinking that if they had to die, at least they had left Harry with this small precious gift. Their love and protection over him, even if they couldn't be there in person to deliver it. Each of them had questions of how this had really worked, as surely Lily wasn't the first mother to die for her child, but they decided to wait until much later to question the actual act of that magic.

Harry sat and thought about this for some time before moving on to another question, and asked if Dumbledore knew who had sent him his invisibility cloak?

"Just out of curiosity, though I'd really like to know the answer myself, why on earth would you think he'd know that?" Remus asked. "It's not like you knew then what you know now."

"He's the headmaster of the school," Harry tried to explain, "I thought he would know everything that goes on there, I don't know, I didn't even have anyone else to ask really."

"Fair enough," he agreed, albeit sadly.

Dumbledore said that his father had left it in his possession,

"I did what?" James balked.

"So we were right," Sirius said slowly, "sometime in the next year, the Order must find out about it, and everyone starts using it. Or Dumbledore could mean him specifically, in which case," he trailed off.

"Why would he need it?" Lily asked what they were all thinking, "he's already said that he can be invisible without it?"

"Well maybe he couldn't," Remus offered, "there could be a million reasons why he couldn't have turned himself invisible, and he needed an untraceable way."

"Well, remind me never to offer it up anyways," James sniffed, privately thinking that he didn't care what the bloody Order needed it for, his family was going to need it more all too soon.

but Dumbledore decided that it belonged in Harry's hands. His father had made good use of it by sneaking around the castle, stealing food from the kitchens.

"Can't deny that," Sirius chuckled.

Harry began to ask about Snape, but then Dumbledore corrected him it was Professor Snape.

"Ah no," Remus interrupted himself, "if Harry actually ever calls him that, and means it mind you, I'll eat a quaffle."

All of the boys laughed, while Lily simply rolled her eyes indulgently.

Harry just said, yes him,

"Best answer you could have given," Sirius snickered.

and how Quirrell had said something about how his father had hated him, and was that true?

"Yes, and no," Lily said sadly, "but since you already know that complicated answer," she trailed off, eyeing Remus expectantly, who took the hint.

Dumbledore agreed that they did detest each other, but then his father had done something Snape couldn't forgive, he saved Snape's life.

"What?" Harry yelped.

Remus couldn't help but burst out laughing, and without looking up read.

Harry exclaimed what!?

Harry ignored this, still eyeing his father.

The three boys exchanged rather uneasy looks, that was a rather nasty tail for all parties involved, so James said slowly, "well, you see, ah-"

Then Sirius cut in quickly, "Let's start with, it was my fault, end with the bugger didn't actually die, and we can fill in the middle bit later, yeah?"

Harry nodded grudgingly, very curious to hear this.

"Maybe Dumbledore will tell you now," Lily offered, though none of them really expected him to give Harry the full story.

Dumbledore explained that Snape hated being in his father's debt, and that he'd done so much this year to protect Harry because he felt it would make them even.

"Well," James said, looking like he'd just swallowed a lemon he spat out, "okay fine. Yeah, call us even. But anything he does to you over the next six years is fair game for me to hate him again."

Lily snorted, but none of them could disagree.

Now he could go on hating Harry's father in peace.

"And I'm sure he did," Sirius said in a false happy voice.

Harry tried to understand this but it made his head hurt.

"That was a bombshell out of nowhere," he explained to the kind of confused looks.

Then Harry asked how the Stone got out of the mirror.

"I think we've kind of worked that out," Remus said.

"But I'd like to hear him explain it anyways," Sirius said in a stuffy tone, "so no cutting out."

Remus gave him the stank eye before reading.

Dumbledore beamed as he said he felt that was one of his more brilliant ideas, which was saying something,

James couldn't help but snort with mirth at that.

and explained that only someone who wanted to find the Stone without using it could get it out of the mirror.

"Yeah," Remus nodded, "about what I worked out."

"Know it all," James snickered, while Remus stuck his tongue out at him.

"But Quirrell didn't technically want to use it," Lily pointed out with a ruffled brow. "So shouldn't that still count?"

"But Voldemort did," Sirius reminded with a renewed shudder of disgust at the thought, "and I think that's what made it count. If Quirrell had just been down there on his own, then maybe he would have gotten it on a technicality. It all depends on how liberal the mirror was with the spell, if Quirrell's intentions to give it to someone who would use it still nullified him."

"You scare me when you get all logical like that," Lily smirked back without argument.

Dumbledore then turned his attention to Harry's candy and exclaims when he finds a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. He says he'd come across a vomit flavoured one once,

"Blech," Sirius retched, the nausea he had been feeling had died down, but he didn't appreciate the reminder.

but decided he'd try one again with a toffee colored one.

"Never assume what flavour it is by the colour," James said wisely, "otherwise chocolate

flavoured can look like bark."

He chewed on the bean for a moment before gagging and saying it had been ear wax.

"My point," he laughed.

The narrative returned, explaining that Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was a nice woman, but very strict.

"You can say that again," Remus nodded in agreement.

Time had clearly passed, and Harry was now trying to convince her to let his friends in now that Dumbledore had gone, and she had let him in.

"Another benefit of the cloak," Sirius snorted, "we never asked for permission to go in there."

"You never asked for permission to go anywhere," Lily reminded.

She said she had because that was the headmaster, but Harry still needed his rest.

"She thinks resting will cure every disease in the world," Remus muttered.

Harry promised he wouldn't get out, just please let them in, and she did.

"Poor kids, not being allowed to go in and see him," Lily sighed, then perked up at once saying, "Oh, Ron's okay. Poor thing, I've forgotten all about him."

"Well, since Harry didn't wake up and find him in the Hospital with him, I'm sure he wasn't too badly hurt," Sirius said brightly.

Hermione ran in, looking ready to fling another hug on Harry, but she held back to which Harry was grateful for, as he was still feeling rather sore.

All four adults again exchanged superior looks, they had a feeling Hermione liked hugging Harry a little more than as a friend, but as Harry had shown no reaction to this, since he only had eleven year old memories it wasn't too surprising, they said nothing.

Hermione exclaimed how worried they were, while Ron wanted to know what had

happened. Harry filled them in on all the details, and Hermione screamed out right when she heard what was on the back of Quirrell's head.

"Damn near did as well," Lily shuddered.

When he was done Ron's first question was that since the Stone was gone, Flamel was just going to die?

"Well when you put it like that, it sounds awful," Remus chuckled.

Harry agreed that's what he had said, but then repeated what Dumbledore had told him. Ron said that Dumbledore was crazy, but hardly looked upset over this.

"A feeling I share," Sirius laughed.

Then Harry asked what had happened to them, and Hermione says how she went back and got Ron, and they were going up to the owlery to write a note to Dumbledore when they met him in the entrance hall,

"Entrance hall?" James said, frowning, "the owlery is up in the turrets, and they were on the third floor. What did they go down for?"

"Took a wrong secret passage," Harry answered, he had asked them this himself later. "Hermione was leading, and they were in so much of a panic, they decided not to risk taking any more. They wound up at the top of the stairs and there was the entrance hall..." he trailed off, then waved Remus on.

and Dumbledore's only words were that Harry had gone after him, hadn't he? Then Ron asks if Dumbledore meant to set the whole thing up, like by sending Harry the cloak.

"I'll kill him," Lily vowed, "encouraging you to do that!"

"Lily," Remus said uneasily, but she looked like she was going red in the face as she snarled, "No Remus. Nothing you say will make this alright. Nothing Dumbledore says could make this alright. If he intended-"

"I'm not defending him," Remus said hotly back, "what I'm saying is give the bloody man a

chance."

Lily paused, giving him an odd look, while he explained, "You made us promise not to kill Snape because of what we thought of him, well now I'm asking you to do the same. Dumbledore is the greatest wizard there is, and while I can fault him for a lot of things in this year," he waved the book around just to make sure they understood what he meant, "I'll not have you condemn him without all the facts. Six more books Lily, then you can go kill him if you want."

Lily deflated, but finally said, "Yes, alright, agreed."

James and Sirius were looking between the two wide eyed like a tennis match, but after a few more moments Remus continued.

Hermione disagreed, he wouldn't do that, Harry could have been killed.

Lily muttered something under her breath, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

Harry said that he thinks instead of Dumbledore discouraging them, he may have just been trying to help them along, like he thought Harry had a right to face Voldemort.

Lily opened her mouth in protest, but quickly snapped it shut. She came to the conclusion that if she started nagging on everything she thought Dumbledore did, rather than the man himself saying it, she was no better than the four boys around here this whole book. So she kept her mouth shut, and contented herself with mental scathing.

Ron repeated that Dumbledore was off his rocker. Then he changed the subject to the end-of-year feast tomorrow. Even though all of the points were in and Slytherin had won, because Harry had missed the last Quidditch match,

James groaned, saying, "this is why you have a reserve team."

"Maybe they still won with a quick replacement," Remus offered without any real hope.

that Ravenclaw had pummelled them without Harry,

"Never mind," he sighed.

"Who did replace you anyways?" Sirius asked.

"Some seventh year who Charlie beat out of the team all those years ago," Harry shrugged, he'd never asked for details, to angry at himself for missing the match.

but at least the food would be good. Before Harry could respond though, Madam Pomfrey came back over and told them they had to get out now, Harry had to rest!

"Bossy, bossy, bossy," Remus muttered. As good as her intentions were, the thing he hated the most about his condition was being cut off from his friends so much.

The next day Harry was trying to convince the matron to let him go to the feast, and she agreed that Dumbledore had allowed this in a rather stiff tone, like she thought feasts were far too dangerous.

"Well you can't blame her since that time we released a horde of fire salamanders our last day there," James chuckled, no one would ever forget that ceremony.

Then she told Harry that he had another visitor, and Hagrid walked in, took one look at Harry, and began crying.

"Aw," Lily smiled, "in all of this, I can't even be mad at Hagrid for his slip."

"Agreed," the boys all said.

He began sobbing that this was all his fault, if he hadn't slipped about Fluffy, and how he shouldn't have fallen for something like a dragon egg.

"In consolation, he didn't know that at the time," Remus said bracingly, like Hagrid was really there to comfort him. "Otherwise I'm positive you wouldn't have said a word."

Then he swore he'd never drink again. Exclaiming how he should be forced to live with Muggles.

"I think they only do that to wizards who can't be rehabilitated in Azkaban," James said,

frowning. "Hagrid's never done anything to deserve that."

"Rehabilitated?" Sirius snorted. "They bloody lose their souls in that place."

"Can we not talk about this," Lily groaned, she didn't want to think about that horrid place any more then possible, and Harry was looking a little funny at the mention of the place.

Harry tried to comfort him, saying surely Voldemort would have figured all of that out some other way.

"True as well," Remus agreed.

Hagrid told him not to say the name, and in retaliation, Harry screamed Voldemort, which stunned Hagrid so much he stopped crying.

"I've never tried that," James said thoughtfully, "you think if we just yell it loud enough people will get over it?"

Lily snorted and shook her head in disbelief, but since James clearly didn't mean it she didn't say anything.

Harry said that because he'd met him, he was going to call him by his name.

'Wish you hadn't met him' they were all thinking.

Harry tried to convince Hagrid to cheer up, and handed him a Chocolate Frog.

"That cheers everyone up," Remus said, smiling eagerly.

Hagrid did marginally cheer up then, and said that he'd gotten Harry a present.

Dumbledore had given him the day off for him to work on it, though in his opinion he should have been fired instead.

They were all very curious to see what Hagrid had gotten Harry this time. Despite the disastrous consequences of his Christmas gift, he was still the one person through this entire story that had been keeping an eye out for Harry, that wasn't a student anyways. True he had made some disastrous mistakes, but who hadn't in their life?

Hagrid gave him a book, and when Harry flipped it open, he found a photo album filled with pictures of his mother and father.

"Oh," Lily murmured, looking about ready to burst into tears again.

"Thank Merlin," James breathed, "I'd hate for your only image of us to be some spooky old

mirror."

Harry was smiling sadly, very much wishing he had that book now, having looked through it so many times he would have wanted to ask exactly when and why each picture had been taken.

Hagrid had apparently sent owls off to all of Harry's parents old school friends asking for these, then asked if Harry liked it.

Remus and Sirius exchanged very depressed looks, knowing that they probably hadn't been on that list.

"You were in the book," Harry said slowly, looking at Sirius with a new light, then he smiled and said, "I knew it. I thought I had some memory of you, but it must have been your picture I'd seen. The wedding photo."

Sirius went bright eyed at that saying, "You saw me? That's awesome, here we were both getting depressed you'd never even know we existed."

Harry smiled and nodded, but the moment Remus kept reading, the less sure he felt. There was a picture of Sirius in his parent's scrapbook, but that wasn't the feeling he had of Sirius. It must be though, what else could it be?

Harry was speechless with gratitude.

Harry was finally released from the Hospital wing after that and made his way down to the Great Hall, finding the place decked out in Slytherin colours, but trying to ignore that plus all of the stares he was receiving as he sat in between Ron and Hermione.

"I just had deja vu' to your first day there," James wanted to laugh, but at Harry's annoyed look, he held himself back.

Then Dumbledore took to his feet and began addressing the students, saying that he was happy they had a good school year, and happier they had a whole summer to forget it all.

"I wish some students hadn't taken that to heart," Lily said lightly.

James and Remus gave her annoyed looks, but Sirius actually laughed for a moment before he realized Lily had meant them, then he just scowled at her without any real heat.

Then he began addressing the House Cup, stating all of the house points. Slytherin cheered wildly, and Harry felt sick at watching Draco Malfoy cheer along.

"Maybe next year you won't go pulling as many stupid stunts, and you'll actually earn points," Lily said without any real hope.

James snorted, for some reason he highly doubted that. Then Lily looked at Harry's face, and she agreed it was wishful thinking.

Dumbledore gave them congratulations, then said that recent events had to be accounted for.

"Recent events?" Sirius asked.

"They stop counting the last day before exams start," Remus puzzled.

Then Dumbledore said he was going to give out some last-minute points,

James went wide eyed before he gasped, "you mean he's going to award you three with house points for what you did?"

Harry muttered, "us four," but not loud enough that Remus stopped to ask.

and started with Ronald Weasley, who went bright purple in shock, looking like a sunburnt radish.

"I officially cannot meet your friend without laughing at him," James chuckled.

Dumbledore awarded him fifty house points for his champion chess skills.

"That bumped you to third place," Lily sighed, this didn't seem fair to her at all. Through the

whole of their first year, Harry and his friends had constantly broke the rules, and been awarded for it. The only time they had been punished, and still Harry was almost put in danger because of it. She really, really didn't like this pattern that was forming.

The Gryffindors all began cheering, Percy beside himself with pride as he boasted that was his kid brother who had gotten past McGonagall's chess set.

"So they do know some of what happened," Sirius said in surprise.

Once things had quieted down again, he went to Hermione, awarding her fifty points for her use of logic.

"The three of you are going to win that hundred and fifty points back," Remus surmised.

"But that would leave them twenty points short," Lily added up.

"So Dumbledore's rewarding you guys for what you did, but not so much that you beat out

another house," James said approvingly.

Lily sighed, she wished they weren't rewarded for it at all. She was proud of her son for what he did yes, but if he came to the conclusion that it was alright now to go breaking rules and then expected to be awarded, they were going to have a hard six books to come.

Then he went on to Harry, awarding him sixty points for his use of courage.

"Never mind, they did tie," Lily rolled her eyes.

"Has there ever been a tie?" James asked.

"No, not that I can think of," Remus said, "so this might be interesting."

Harry was cheering along with everyone else, but then as he added it up, he realized they were now tied with Slytherin. Dumbledore wasn't done yet though, as he finally went on to Neville, awarding him ten points for having stood up to his friends.

All four adults couldn't help themselves. Despite how wrong they felt this was, they all said,

"Congratulations," and Harry's eyes light up like Christmas all over again. Mostly though, they were just proud of him, and happy that Neville had been rewarded as well for what he had done. What's done is done.

The whole Hall went wild, everyone was pleased that the Slytherin's had lost the cup. McGonagall and Snape got to their feet and shook hands, a rather forced smile in place on the later.

"Oh, I'm sure he's very pleased about all of this," Sirius laughed.

Snape caught Harry's eye, and he could tell that Snape's feelings towards him hadn't changed one little bit.

"Can't say I'm surprised," James sighed.

"Disappointed though," Lily muttered.

Harry knew that this was the best night of his life, better than playing Quidditch, or his Christmas, or even knocking out trolls.

"Knocking out mountain trolls is a good memory now?" Lily asked.

"Well when you look back, yeah, I was pretty proud of that incident," Harry shrugged.

Before he knew it, the school year was over, they were being handed their final grades, and even the neanderthal students like Crabbe and Goyle had managed to scrape through, but as Ron said, you couldn't have everything.

"Has anyone ever gotten such bad marks they were thrown out?" Sirius laughed.

"You should try it sometime," Lily said sweetly.

"Why do you keep picking on me," Sirius grumbled.

"Because you know I don't mean it," she shrugged, eyes twinkling.

Sirius couldn't help it, he smiled back.

Notes were handed out reminding that magic wasn't allowed on holidays,

"Pointless really for the purebloods," James laughed.

despite Fred saying how he always hoped no one would remember to hand those out.

"Even if they forgot to give them to you, the rule would still apply," Lily giggled.

Their suitcases were packed, and they were all back on the boats with Hagrid to head back to the train. The three friends had a memorable trip, filled with candy and games, and then they were pulling back onto the platform.

"Oh no," Remus groaned.

"What's the matter," James demanded, Remus looked like he didn't know whether to be angry or sad, and it was rather an odd, torn expression.

"I've just realized where he's heading back to," he sighed.

"Crap," Sirius hissed in disdain.

"You know what, I lied," Lily told Harry, going a shade of red in the face at remembered anger, "I'll take the mountain troll."

"Last you left, they weren't speaking to you," James groaned. "So I suppose if you just have to put up with that for three months, it won't be too bad."

Harry kept quiet, knowing full well it was better not to say anything he was thinking about the Dursley's to this lot, and just mentally preparing more calming speeches about why they shouldn't kill them yet.

It took some time for all of the wizards to pass back through the barrier, as it would be kind of obvious if they all crowded out at once.

Despite the sudden dread, they all couldn't help but laugh a bit at that mental image.

While waiting, Ron mentioned how he wanted Harry to come over during the summer.

"Yes," all four of them said at once, glad Harry's friend didn't wait till another year to ask.

"Hell, please let him stay all summer," James begged.

Harry blinked, having an odd feeling about bars being ripped off of windows? Something involving Ron? He had no idea.

As people were passing by them, random people called out a farewell to Harry. Ron laughed and said that Harry was still famous, and Harry corrected not where he was headed to.

"Wish you had told them exactly why," Lily muttered.

"Why didn't you?" Remus demanded.

"I just made some snide comments every now and then, like that first day I met Ron," Harry

shrugged. He hadn't really believed that, whatever he said, he'd be taken away from the Dursley's, so he never thought to tell anyone. What good would it do?

It was their turn to exit then, and the first people they spotted was Ron's family, including his younger sister who squealed in delight at seeing Harry Potter.

Lily rolled her eyes, how young was this kid again?

Harry however was smiling indulgently, like he thought that was the cutest thing in the world. Odd though, since back then he'd just felt embarrassed.

Mrs. Weasley greeted Harry with warmth, asking if he had a busy year. Harry's only response was to say, very.

"Why do you over exaggerate every punishment you should have gotten, but can't be bothered in these moments," James laughed.

Harry thanked her for the sweater, but then he spotted the Dursleys, as outraged as ever to see the nerve of Harry existing.

"I can't believe the nerve of your ugly face," Remus grumbled.

Mrs. Weasley greeted them as well, asking if they were Harry's family.

"Hardly," Lily muttered scathingly.

"Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid are better family than that lot of slugs," James hissed.

Vernon's reply was only in a manner of speaking, then he turned to Harry and told the boy to hurry up, he didn't want to wait all day on him.

Remus half considered it a bleeding miracle the man had even shown up to get Harry, considering the last time he'd only dropped him off as a cruel joke.

Sirius puzzled over something, thinking back to those awful first three chapters when he had felt like a murderous psychopath, and came to the suddenly odd conclusion that Vernon had never actually called Harry by his name. He had just called him boy at every opportunity. It seemed a miracle Harry even knew his name. Well the first chapter said Vernon never even learned Harry's name, maybe this was implying he never had. Sirius couldn't decide whether to laugh at the man's stupidity, or crack the man's head open and let all the dust out.

Harry still hung back for a last word with his friends, Ron promising he'd see him over the holidays, Hermione wishing him well with an uncertain look over at Harry's Uncle, clearly shocked at how unpleasant he as.

"You haven't heard the worst of it," Lily snapped.

Harry suddenly got a huge grin as he promised that he would have fun over the holidays,

"Why?" James asked, "cause you know how to curse Dudley now?"

Harry just chuckled, that momentary memory of something bad happening gone in an instant to be replaced by what he had been feeling then.

because the Dursleys didn't know he wasn't allowed to use magic outside of school. He was going to have a lot of fun with his cousin this summer.

"Oh," they all said brightly.

Lily frowned in concern at once, as she knew full well Petunia did know that rule, as she

constantly reminded it of her whenever the slightest odd thing happened. Hopefully Harry

wouldn't get into too much trouble because of it...

"Okay, that could be some potential for a lot of fun," James said, an evil grin spreading across his face.

"That's the end of this book," Remus said, glancing down at the last two words.

"Well I think it's time for dinner then," Lily said getting to her feet.

"I can help," Harry offered, following her into the kitchen

"No dear, I won't even let your father help, this is my thing. Go badger the boys with fifty

questions I know you've been holding back."

Harry smiled at her, but did as he was told, walking back in to find them all laughing about some of the pranks they had pulled back in school, but there was a dark undertone to it. They seemed to be focusing on the ones that had disastrous, unplanned side effects. Several students seemed to have wound up in the hospital wing because of them.

Harry didn't want to think about the Dursley's when he was in such good company now, so he threw out the first question that came to mind. "So about that awful Quidditch match?" Harry began cautiously.

"Really?" James laughed. "You want to bring that up now? After everything we've just read?"

Harry merely shrugged, as far as he was concerned, he was alright. He didn't even feel any lingering trauma from this, which didn't bode well for his mental health, or this gut feeling that this wasn't his only deadly encounter. So he did what he had been watching his family do this whole time, deflect. "Yes," he said simply.

Sirius sighed and began, "Alright, yeah, you've earned it. So it was my fifth year right, and just before the game I was mad and distracted, which is probably why I didn't notice that my little brother, Regulus, was a Seeker for the Slytherin team, in his second year! Scrawny little git, I wouldn't have believed he could stay on a broom that was almost as big as him."

Shaking his head in remembrance, though with his mixed feelings about his brother he really couldn't decide if they were fond or not, he kept going, "anyways, so after I had basically ignored him for the past two years, I didn't see any reason to change that now, and the game went on as usual. That is until James went to make our fifth goal in a row, and one of the Slytherin beaters on the team lost it. I'll admit, I was distracted by watching Regulus, so I didn't see him, guy's name was Runcorn I think, big ol' sixth year. Yeah anyways, he knocked a bludger right at James, who didn't have the quaffle at the time mind you, and I did what any beater would and dove down to intercept."

Sirius paused again, frowning a bit and saying, "Don't rightly remember the rest of it, since that's the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital wing."

"Well we do," Remus said, looking pale as he glared at his friend, who clearly looked like he wanted the story to end there. Knowing that wasn't fair, he turned to Harry and finished, "Sirius was coming in from one direction to block the Bludger, and Regulus came in from the other, he must have seen the snitch or something. James tried to cut away, but having three things pelting him at once, it's no wonder he collided with one of them, which happened to be Regulus. All three boys managed to dodge impact however, but then Runcorn blew the second Bludger in their direction, and still disoriented from that three way near knock out, one of the three didn't have time to move out of the way..." he trailed off, wincing in disgust.

"It was awful," James agreed, "that thing hit Sirius in the back of the head, and he fell nearly forty feet to the ground. Everyone was distracted by calling a foul on both teams."

"I thought he was dead," Remus said, looking like he was going to pass out while looking his friend full in the face, "I didn't even realize he wasn't in the air any more, and when I saw him on the ground below-"

"But I'm not," Sirius said loudly, mimicking Harry earlier, but hey it had worked then right.

"Spent a while in the hospital wing, and then I was as good as new."

Lily was looking genuinely upset for all of them, not having attended this game, she couldn't even imagine the trauma of seeing that now. She had been listening in from the kitchen, rather curious to hear that story herself.

Harry smiled around at them, as he decided to let the story go. His family clearly didn't like revisiting the incident. Yet this shared memory only reinforced what he knew for a fact back when he had first woken up and laid eyes on these people. They were all loving, caring, and his. Nothing would ever change that.

HPHPHP

Finally done! ...redone? Not the point! I'll have the next book up within the week, and before we

know it we'll be right on track again in the third book! Thank you all so much to infinity for your

constant support of this, it never would have made a comeback without you all.

Thoughts on Philosopher's Stone:

The first book of this series does an excellent job right off the bat of showing you exactly what you're getting for the next seven, yes still seven I'll get to that latter, books. Whimsical fun mixed with a healthy dose of 'this is some real shit you need to learn to survive.' Magic is only introduced and teased until you hit chapter 6, and even then you only get the real life experience of what's been building up in 8. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is such a fascinating space I swear you could throw the most boring person in the world, like Vernon for instance, in there and you'd still find something interesting in that school. Harry being the focal point really makes you feel like you're there, because he's not much of an opinionated person. While traveling through him you don't get his impressions, you just see what he does and you gather your own opinion of

it. The characters are introduced at an excellent pace, it quickly sets up their character, but then at the story progresses you realize there's more depth to them and you get to watch them interact and change throughout the year. Even subtle future plot points are laid out that you won't even notice until your second read through. Fourth favorite in the series, 10/10 for me, would recommend to anyone of any age.

*I couldn't find a way to work it into the book, but the reason Dumbledore flew instead of getting there quicker was because of Fudge. At the beginning of the book Hagrid mentioned how Dumbledore got messages from the man all the time, and Dumbledore was more than tired of having to arrive and help the man, so he was dragging his feet if you will to go up there. They don't even meet Fudge until the second book, and they don't see his true colors until the fifth, and by that time this really wouldn't have a reason to cross their mind. Found that interesting.

Works inspired by this one

Thin Pages Book 1: Philosopher's Stone by Queen_Of_Creating

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!

#Harry Potter #James Potter #Lily Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #Reading the Books #fanfiction #compelte

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poppibranchlover · 5 years

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The Queen and the Butterfly II: The Witch’s Curse - Part 19

This story is a sequel to “The Queen and the Butterfly”.

The story: Poppy offers Branch some cupcakes with butterflies in it which turns out to be mysterious. When the two Trolls eat them, they got transformed into butterflies themselves and realize that the cupcakes were actually cursed by an evil witch! Now they must try to find the witch who made those cupcakes and get a cure to get themselves back to normal, while encountering obstacles in the process along the way.

Getting close to finish, friends! You already seen what had happened in Part 18. Now get ready for Part 19!:

Meanwhile, in the lab, Branch was still trapped in the jar that the female Troll put over him. He desperately wanted to get out of here. He kept fluttering around the glass and knocking it with his hair as hard as he could but to no avail.

Then he tried charging into the glass like a bull. But instead, he smacked into it and was flown backwards before tumbling onto the ground.

Frustrated, Branch tried pushing the jar and it moved a bit. It seemed like it was working. If he pushed it hard enough, the glass might break and he would be free. He continued pushing the jar forward with all his strength, not long until the Troll arrived back in the lab, just in time to see Branch trying to escape.

When she walked closer to the jar, Branch stopped pushing it and gasped at the sight of an enormous person suddenly bending over him. He darted to the left side of the glass and tried to knock it as the Troll put a hand over the jar to take a closer look at him.

“Oh, what a darling little butterfly!” she said, looking at Branch, who was desperately flapping his wings and flying up and down. He continued looking for a way out of the jar, ignoring her and screaming for help in his high-pitched butterfly voice.

“Let me out!” he was yelling while doing this so. “Help me!”

The Troll made a face as she watched Branch. He looked so scared and helpless....just like a butterfly. Apparently, butterflies are just extremely shy to go near big Trolls.

Branch frantically kept sliding up and down the glass, flapping his wings and panicking. The Troll moved her face closer to the jar, trying as much as she could to comfort him. But Branch thought she was going to shout angrily at him once more and cowered in fear.

“Come on, little butterfly,” she said gently. “You don't have to be scared. I’m not going to hurt you. I'm very nice.”

This made Branch stop immediately. He perched still on the glass, facing the back and moving his wings slowly. Then he faced the Troll, his eyes wide with fear and worry. To him, it looked as if she did wanted to hurt him after all and since he was now a butterfly, he has no point whether he would like this or not. She seems so big and he was so tiny, and he was afraid to speak to her that he was a Troll too. He just perched in the jar, trying not to move as the Troll observed him very carefully.

“Look at you! You poor thing,” she said. “You look so tiny and cute! Stop breaking the glass too hard and look at me, please?”

Branch stared at her, confused. What is she talking about? I want to get out of here now!

The Troll twisted the jar for a bit and pulled out her magnifying glass to inspect him closely. Branch looked frightened and shuffled upwards. His wings glistened as he flapped them again.

The Troll giggled as she inspected them. “I like your wings,” she said. “They're so sparkly and pretty.”

Branch made a face. No, they’re not! he thought as he glanced at his wings for a second. I mean, just look at them! Do you think it’s useless?

His wings flapped in response, shining like glitter. Branch scowled and groaned.

"Your hair must be so soft,” the Troll added, inspecting his blue hair. Finally, she looked closely at his face and concluded “I think your face looks just like me, but I can’t tell what your face actually looks like.”

Branch stared at her for a moment, puzzled. Then he looked back at the glass and started squirming again, still trying to get out.

The Troll stroked her chin as she observed her discovery. How was she able to get this little butterfly look at her again? She moved the jar closer to her face and told Branch gently “I want to know what your face looks like. Come on.”

She motioned her finger to the jar and wiggled it back and forth, as a way of signalling Branch to fly closer to her. But he didn’t like the sound of that. He cringed and continued squirming around the glass.

He fluttered to the right and perched himself upside down on it, pushing the jar with his face. His wings moved slowly as he kept still for a moment. Then he fluttered the other way and did the same.

The Troll watched as he fluttered around the jar and back. What an exciting discovery she had come to. But Branch still couldn’t get out of the jar. He fluttered here and he fluttered there to see if there is any other way to escape.

But there was no way out at all. His antennae twitched and he just blinked, his wings moved slowly when he kept still again. Then after that, he fluttered to the left and perched himself in his regular position there.

Branch was starting to grow worried as he frantically kept looking for a way out. But he knew he would never, never find the way. His antennae twitched again and he looked back at the Troll, who was still observing him. She motioned her finger again and told him gently “Come on. Don’t be afraid. Please come closer to me so I can see your little face.”

Branch calmed down for a moment when he turned to her. He looked concerned, wondering if she has any other way to release him. He fluttered to the other side where she is looking at him and perched himself on it.

Once he landed there, his wings moved up and down slowly and his antennae jerked a bit. The Troll lifted the jar so she can take a closer look at Branch’s face.

Branch started moaning and shivering with fear when he stared up at her, making his eyes as big as he could. His antennae twitched at once and his ears drooped with sadness, making him look lovably pathetic.

“Awwww!” the Troll girl said with sympathy as she looked at his begging expression on his face. This butterfly in her jar was really a Troll after all! “Aren’t you sweet? What have I done with to you? You certainly look like me!”

The look on Branch’s face seemed to tell her to get him out of the jar. He whined like a puppy and puts his nose to the glass, still making his eyes wide and pathetic. He looked very cute, way beyond cuter, like every small creature would ever always be. His wings fidgeted behind him as he continued moaning sadly.

The Troll wanted to do something to make him happy. She put a finger to him and started tapping at the glass.

TAP! TAP! TAP!

In a flash, Branch flew away, startled by this. He didn’t like how she was doing it.

Then she put her hand away from the glass and he perched back to her again, glaring at her.

“What’s the matter with you?” the Troll said, giggling playfully. “You don’t like to be touched?”

Branch simply glared at her, feeling uncomfortable with the thought of being poked by a giant Troll. He moved his wings for a second to show disapproval.

“I see,” the Troll said, nodding and understanding how he felt. Then she gently put down the jar and rushed to one of her shelves in her lab, finding something to comfort him.

There, she picked up a leftover of an eaten cookie beside a replica of a bone ribcage and walked back to the jar. She picked it up and showed the cookie to Branch. He looked puzzled when she held it up towards him.

Was it cursed too? He can’t simply even tell!

“Are you hungry?” the Troll asked him, moving the cookie nearer to him so he can see it. “You want this?”

Branch stared up at her in confusion. He feels uncertain about this. He knew that everywhere in this mansion, there are plenty of cursed food in here, including the butterfly cupcakes. And now, this Troll was about to give him this cookie kept in this place. He was worried if this Troll eat this, then she would become under a spell as well!

“Don’t worry,” she said to him, ignoring the expression on his face. “I’ll give you a bit for you so you can eat it. I’ll eat the other half of this cookie.”

Then without warning, she puts the cookie into her mouth and took a bite. CRUNCH!

Branch watched in state of confusion as she gobbled up only just half of it. Crumbs scatter onto the floor as she ate. So far, it looks more like an ordinary cookie.

Once she stopped eating some of it, she offered a chunk of what’s left of it to Branch and said “It’s so good! Now it’s your turn!”

She moved the chunk closer for him to eat. Afraid, he fluttered back to the left side and tried desperately escaping the jar himself once again.

But this Troll already has one capable chance of getting him out. She poked the cookie chunk a few times on the glass to give him attention. Branch turned around, looking up at her, and at the cookie.

He thinks that the cookie has magical effects and was sure to transform him and this Troll. He prayed she would choose the right cookie. But alas, she wasn’t going to do it. He was about to turn away when she told him gently “Don’t worry, little fella. It has no magic effect when I eat it.”

Branch raised an eyebrow. Was this true? It looked like a normal cookie to her.

“Trust me. I didn’t transform when I eat this,” she continued. “And you wouldn’t too! Eat this. Come on.” She motioned the cookie back and forth, trying to get Branch to flutter to her view again. “Come closer. Don’t be shy. You got to try this.”

She tapped at the glass again. Only this time, it was more gentle than startling. Branch carefully flapped his wings and hovered towards the cookie, taking a sniff at it.

The Troll moved the cookie up and down, making Branch follow it. He was still sniffing at it, trying to figure out what did it taste like. Then he charged at the glass again and tumbled backwards. He was indeed still trapped in the jar and wants to eat the cookie right now. He got angry as he tried breaking it to get the cookie while inside it to no avail. The Troll saw how distressed he is and realizes that she forgot about releasing him.

“Oh, I’m so sorry” she apologized. “Where are my manners?”

Then she gently dropped the jar and placed the cookie piece on the floor near her feet.

Finally, she lifted the jar up and Branch fluttered out of it. He was glad to have been saved by her, but he was now getting hungry.

He continued sniffing for the cookie as he fluttered towards it. It was starting to smell so chocolately and delicious to his nose right now. But is it really true this Troll is certain that it’s just a normal cookie? He would really need to know about it.

Just pretend it’s a normal cookie, he thought as he examined it, trying to remain calm. Just pretend it’s normal.

Next, he closed his eyes and opened his mouth wide. Then he took a bite on the cookie. CHOMP!!!

He chewed, feeling the yummy taste of chocolate chips inside his mouth. He even tried feeling the taste of unnecessary side effects from the cookie as he swallowed the chunk.

“Mmmm? Mmmm!” Branch mumbled through what he was eating right now. In fact, it tasted just like a regular cookie should be! Smiling to himself, he helped himself to eating the rest of this delicious biscuit.

CHOMP!!! CHOMP!!! CHOMP!!! CHOMP!!!!

Branch gobbled up every last chunk of the cookie, scattering some pieces of crumbs around the floor. The Troll watched happily and playfully stroked his hair with her finger as he ate. It is quite adorable to see butterflies eating food in this type of way.

Just then, Poppy fluttered out of her hiding place to see what is going on right now. She looked around and saw the Troll fawning over Branch eating the cookie piece. “Awwww!” she said with a smile as she looked at Branch. “So cute!”

Then she fluttered down to him and began to share a piece with him, taking the right edge of the cookie and chomping at it.

CHOMP!!! CHOMP!!! CHOMP!!! CHOMP!!!!

Now Branch and Poppy are eating and sharing one cookie together. They chomped and munched on the chunks happily, not long before Branch noticed that she was eating with him too. They stopped eating and stare at each other for a moment, holding the now-smaller cookie piece in their mouths.

Then Branch took the last piece away from her mouth and held it proudly, glad to see that Poppy is alright. Seeing her boyfriend being so happy to have eaten something sweet again, she laughed as he swallowed the last piece.

“I love you so much!” Poppy said happily.

Suddenly, upon hearing her high-pitched voice from below, the yellow-haired Troll gasped in shock. “Hey! Did I know you?!”

Branch stared up at her. “Know ‘who’?” he asked, speaking up. “You didn’t even know who I am!”

“No! Not you!” the Troll corrected him. She pointed at Poppy. “Her!”

Poppy looked up at her, looking utterly confused. “You know who I am? Who are you?”

“I’m Chrystelle,” the Troll said. “And I know everything about you, Poppy! You’re the queen of Troll Village! I haven’t seen you around for 300 years since you’ve escaped Bergen Town!”

Poppy and Branch looked at each other, and then at this Troll. It is actually Chrystelle.

“So, it’s really you!” Branch said in amazement. After all this time, he knew this is the kind of Troll they were actually looking for; the one who had made the cursed butterfly cupcakes!

“What happened to you and this Troll, Poppy?” Chrystelle asked, bending down to them. “It looks like you’ve eaten my magical cupcakes!”

“We actually did,” said Poppy, fluttering up to her. “I didn’t realize at the next moment they were cursed! That’s why we’re here to get your help on changing us back!”

“Yeah, because Cloud Guy thinks I’m too tiny to play video games right now!” Branch said.

“Look,” Chrystelle began, her voice faltering as she spoke. “I know you needed my help now but I’m not really the social-kind-of Troll that I used to be. Everyone thinks my food taste bad because my cooking skills are becoming as bad as I’ve observed over a year!”

“Yes,” Poppy told her, perching herself on her ear. “But ever since you decided to exile yourself in this old house, all what you’re doing to the Trolls is far worse than expected!”

"I did. I was so worried to see what would happen if you and your friends eat my food I was making that I don’t want to look.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Branch. “I think you had the right to look.”

“But why are you refusing to look at the effects of your magic food?” Poppy’s eyes searched Chrystelle’s as she spoke gently to her. “I don’t understand....”

Maybe it was the time Poppy learned a lesson and got some perspective on what it was like for somebody who hadn’t had a perfect life like hers. She was just a little, pretty queen with every chance handed to her on a silver platter with cupcakes next to it.

“Remember that early morning when you first saw my cupcakes?” Chrystelle took a deep breath as she began her flashback. “I saw you walking towards my shop and you were asking for my food. But you decided that you want them all.”

Poppy suddenly remembered that day she went to the hooded hermit’s little shop, which was selling butterfly cupcakes. She walked straight to it and asked “Are those chocolate cupcakes with butterfly candies in some vanilla frosting?!”

“Yes,” the hooded figure said. “They’re for sale today! Would you like to buy one?”

“Yes, please!” Poppy said proudly. “I want them all!”

Chrystelle went on with her story. “Moments later, you took every last cupcake from my counter...until no smudge of frosting was left.”

The flashback shows that Poppy had put all the butterfly cupcakes in her basket. The figure was so surprised that she said “Wow! I can’t believe you took all of them! Is there anything to pay more because they’re so expensive to buy!”

“Maybe some stacks of cash would be helpful when it comes to buying a lot!!” Poppy told the hermit as she pulled out a stack of cash from her pocket and placing them on the counter. “Here ya go!”

“Ooh! Thank you,” the hermit said awkwardly. “Have a nice day and enjoy your meal.”

“And after that, you left with my cupcakes,” Chrystelle replied as she continued her story. “I watched from my hood as you go. But deep down, I’m quite worried.”

From her little shop, the hooded person revealed her own eyes. It was Chrystelle in disguise. Since knowing everything about true natures of different creatures in this world, Poppy has realized the truth. Her eyes grew large as she asked “So you were selling those cupcakes I bought two days ago?”

“It’s true,” Chrystelle answered. “Trolls don’t start out this way. But they certainly don’t want to be around one who casts spells like a witch. Even if I accidentally make a deformed cake that turns you into rabid raccoons as well.”

She hung her head low, concluding her flashback. “It wasn’t so hard to watch Trolls enjoying my food in the past. I ended up selling all of these to everyone in secret so I won’t show up to tell you the truth. Every day, I would feel disappointed in my own shop, just wearing black, and anticipate if any curse is working on you once you eat my food. Since then, everyone still doesn’t care about me after I got fired from work at the bakery. I was too revolting, and I couldn’t sell anything but these kind of food ever since.”

She sighed and stared into space, feeling in low spirits. Poppy fluttered close to her and decided to comfort her.

"I’m so sorry to hear how you felt about those cupcakes,” she said tenderly. “But it looks like it was just only a mistake to sell your food to everyone.” She put her butterfly wing up to reach out for Chrystelle’s ear, but she turned away with guilt.

“You’re right. It’s just a stupid mistake I’ve made and nobody will deny what I deserved!” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m very sorry, Poppy. I wish you should have not come to my shop in the first place.”

Poppy hesitated. She felt sorry for this Troll, but deep down, she knew she wanted to change her attitude just like Branch had done it before. “Chrystelle, it wasn’t my fault I buy those cupcakes and then Branch and I ate them and become butterflies!” she explained. “I understand how anti-social you’ve been and why you were afraid to try something new. But Branch and I came here to change ourselves back to normal, right?”

“Well, I’m no use for this world!” Chrystelle complained. “I don’t know a way how to reverse the curse I put into you.”

“Sometimes you gotta think of the positive side so you can do better things for your life.” Poppy said, fluttering towards her face. “No matter how many times you would mess up, just start over and achieve a better life!”

“Really?” asked Chrystelle. “How will I start?”

“By singing a song?” Branch asked absentmindedly, thinking no more than a few plans in what is supposed to be true.

Poppy’s eyes widened with intrigue. “Excellent idea, Branch!” she cried happily. “Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”

“Sometimes there’s always a way to cheer people up! Don’t fight it,” Branch hissed. “But how can we dance if we’re still butterflies?”

Poppy looked at her butterfly form, and then at Branch’s. They were still not Trolls yet...unless they have to keep Chrystelle in high spirits so she can help them. She answered to Branch “Come on. Butterflies can really dance! I’m sure you’re gonna love how to do that! Let’s get to it!”

Then she fluttered closer to Chrystelle’s face and began to sing to her in her high, clear voice:

🎶 Clearly you need music, to make you happy again 🎶

🎶 So listen to this song-type thing, about the greater good. 🎶

She spun around and around as she sang. Branch joined her in, fluttering alongside her.

🎶 There are times that you feel glad and times that you feel sad 🎶

🎶 But d-don’t ever fear because you got company to look after right here 🎶

Next, Poppy was now fluttering around Chrystelle’s head. She watched in amazement as she kept singing to her, getting her to motivate her own feelings.

🎶 Whoooah, yeah! Don’t feel down in the dumps and think positive! 🎶

🎶 And someday, you’ll have the freedom you’ll need! 🎶

🎶 Oh yeah! Whoooah! You’ll have positive freedom! Whoooah! Whoaaah! 🎶

Then Branch fluttered right beside her, flying in circles. He took a deep breath and started to sing in his clear, angelic and handsome voice:

🎶 Now look at me now! 🎶

🎶 I’m soarin’ to my freedom! 🎶

🎶 There’s no catching on me ‘cause I’m happy to be there for you! 🎶

Poppy sang back to him:

🎶 I’m lookin’ at ya! 🎶

🎶 I’m happy that you’re singing for me! 🎶

🎶 Now we’ll fly to our destiny and feel free like we’ll always be! 🎶

Poppy and Branch were now flying around the lab, singing together. They spun around each other as the song kept going.

🎶 We’re butterflies and we long to be free ‘til the end! 🎶

🎶 But now our time has come ‘cause we long to be people again! 🎶

They flew under a ceiling lamp and started dancing, swaying back and forth and flapping their wings.

🎶 Stop being so sad and live happy for now! 🎶

🎶 The pressure was getting into your head so you no need to worry about! 🎶

🎶 Whoooah, yeah! Don’t feel down in the dumps and think positive! 🎶

🎶 And someday, you’ll have the freedom you’ll need! 🎶

🎶 Oh yeah! Whoooah! 🎶 (🎶 Aw, yeah! 🎶)

Poppy was now fluttering around Chrystelle’s head again, singing the chorus to her. Branch joined in as well, providing a steady beat for Poppy’s song.

🎶 You’ll have positive freedom! 🎶 (🎶 That’s right! 🎶 )

🎶 Whoooah! Whoaaah! 🎶 (🎶 Come on! 🎶 )

🎶 Positive freedom! 🎶

Next, Branch turned himself upside down and hovered in a spot, trying to amuse Chrystelle. While he is doing this, he sang:

🎶 Now look at me now! 🎶

🎶 I’m upside down! 🎶

🎶 There’s no reason to frown ‘cause now’s the time to smile! 🎶

Poppy and Chrystelle giggled at him, amused by what they’re seeing. Then Poppy sang back to Branch:

🎶 Whoaah, yeah! I’m lookin’ at ya! 🎶

🎶 I’m happy that I’ll always love you! 🎶

🎶 Now we’ll fly to our destiny and feel free like we’ll always be! 🎶

🎶 Let’s go! 🎶

Now Poppy and Branch are spinning around in circles while singing their song. They sang in perfect harmony, as their voices nearly sync together as one.

🎶 Whoooah! Whoaaah! 🎶

🎶 How I wish to be free? 🎶

🎶 It’s like the golden age of happiness! 🎶

🎶 I wouldn’t want to fly after you until I shout out “Whee!” 🎶

🎶 I want to live like a man! 🎶

🎶 But deep down I’m in love with you! 🎶

🎶 I wish I can have more strength to carry a frying pan! 🎶

They stopped singing for a moment at the point Branch sang this. Chrystelle asked “A frying pan?”

“What?” Branch said to her. “All I could think is saving you from spiders with that weapon!”

“Oh, okay,” Chrystelle said with a nod. “You can carry on.”

The song continued as Poppy perched on her face for a moment before soaring again.

🎶 I wish there’s some way to help you 🎶

🎶 But it’s very disappointing that you very insecure 🎶

🎶 Now all is left to do is drop your insecurities and be just the way you ARE!!! 🎶

Branch sang: 🎶 WHOOO!!! COME ON!!! 🎶

Then he fluttered beside Poppy once more, and the two of them formed a big circle and danced as they sung the chorus one last time.

🎶 Whoooah, yeah! Don’t feel down in the dumps and think positive! 🎶

🎶 And someday, you’ll have the freedom you’ll need! 🎶

🎶 And once you gain what you need 🎶

🎶 You can prove to everyone that you’ve changed! 🎶

🎶 So others will be happy to understand! 🎶

🎶 Oh yeah! Whoooah! 🎶 (🎶 Aw, yeah! 🎶)

🎶 You’ll have positive freedom! 🎶 (🎶 That’s right! 🎶 )

🎶 Whoooah! Whoaaah! 🎶 (🎶 Come on! 🎶 )

🎶 Positive freedom! 🎶

At the grand finale, Poppy and Branch put their wings in the air, singing that last word of the song. Once it finished, Chrystelle clapped her hands and cheered.

"Wow! That’s such a great song!” she said happily. “I didn’t know you can sing very well!”

"Thanks! I hope you like the song!” said Poppy. “Does this make you feel better now?”

“Yes!” Chrystelle answered proudly. “I’m starting to think positive once again!”

Then she stared up into space and put her left hand to her cheek, while her right hand held her left elbow. She began to think. “Hmmm?”

“Now what?” asked Branch. “Are you thinking of a way how to change us back now?”

“I think she is, Branch!” Poppy chirped. “It really worked!”

Moments later, Chrystelle cried out triumphantly “I got it!”

Branch was so startled he nearly lost his balance from flying. “Whoa! What?!” he asked. “Don’t tell me you did find a way…and now you did!”

“I do!” Chrystelle said as she put up a hand, motioning Poppy and Branch to perch on it. They listened as she told them “I’ve found a way how to reverse the curse! I will make two Troll-shaped cupcakes for you to eat and you will be back to normal as I’d promised!”

“But you’re a witch!” Branch said skeptically. “Witches are not supposed to-”

“Don’t worry. I may look like a witch, but I’m very friendly to all creatures big and small!” Chrystelle explained. “I’ll make some cupcakes that will help you restore your normal forms!”

“That sounds great! I’d love to try that new special cupcake of yours, Chrystelle!” Poppy said sweetly. “That’s so nice of you!”

“Thanks,” Chrystelle replied. “But for your safety, I need you guys to stay in the banquet room while I’ll get started making the cupcakes for you in the lab. Things might get crazy in here!”

“For real?” Branch moaned. “That’s one way of being attacked by witches!”

“Branch, let’s not be skeptical,” Poppy told him, putting a wing to her shoulder. “This Troll is going to help us get back to normal in a few minutes until she’s done! Right, Chrystelle?” She turned to the green Troll and gave her a wink.

“Right on it, Poppy!” she answered, winking back at her.

Branch groaned, not wanting to know what was the plan right now. But this is already their plan and they were doing this so this witch can help change them back to normal. And now, he and Poppy must wait until what she have made for them in store.

To Be Continued...

Stay tuned for the last part of the story: Part 20!

Note: Sorry if it’s a little too long because it’s getting close to end. But I thought maybe adding the most important parts would help please you. Anyways, hope you enjoy this, as well as the song! Part 20 will be the last part of the story so stay tuned for updates! :D

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andystanberg · 6 years

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Red Hair and Hand Me Downs: Chapter 3

The Surprise Slytherin

Chapter 2 | Read on AO3 | Read on Wattpad | Chapter 4

Chapter Summary:

Harry enters Hogwarts and gets Sorted. The Great Hall are in for a surprise.

Indeed, it wasn’t long before the train pulled up to a small platform surrounded by a forest. For the last five minutes or so, he, Ron and Draco had been staring out the window trying to get a glimpse of the castle, but either the trees were too tall or the sky was too dark, for they hadn’t seen a thing.

Harry and Ron followed Draco out of the train and onto the platform. Just as they were about to ask someone where they had to go, a great booming voice called out over the crowd, “Firs’-years! Firs’-years over here! All right there, Harry?”

Harry looked up into Hagrid’s beaming face and smiled. Ron leant over and whispered in his ear, “Harry, who’s this?” Harry didn’t get a chance to reply.

“It seems yeh’ve made another friend!” Hagrid exclaimed upon seeing Ron. “Would yer look at tha’, you have the same hair!” Harry had a feeling he’d be getting that a lot. “C’mon, follow me – any more firs’-years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’-years follow me!” Hagrid continued to round up the tiny first-years and then lead them down a steep, narrow path. Harry wondered why none of the other, older students were taking this way.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “Jus’ round this bend here.”

When they did go round, there was a collective “Oh!” from the students. The path had led them to the side of a giant lake. More interestingly, on the other side of the lake, there was a giant castle. Its huge windows sparkled and Harry noted that it had many turrets and towers. His heart raced in excitement. Even Draco, who Harry knew must be quite rich, looked on in awe.

“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called out suddenly, and Harry finally spotted a small fleet of boats bobbing in the water near the shore.

“Draco!” Two voices shouted suddenly, and the trio spun around to see two brutish boys coming towards them.

“Crabbe, Goyle,” Draco greeted coolly, nodding at each in turn. Harry thought that he didn’t seem too pleased with them.

“Where’d you go in such a rush?” One of them – Crabbe – asked.

When they said that, a pug-nosed girl with neat, dark-brown hair spun around to face them. “There you are, Malfoy! How dare you leave like that?” she exclaimed furiously.

“Calm down, Pansy. I just went to find Potter, of course,” Draco explained. Pansy’s eyes widened in shock. She looked behind Draco to where Harry and Ron were standing, then proceeded to size them up.

“Potter? That’s a weird name,” Crabbe noted. Everyone but Goyle glared at him. Draco rolled his eyes.

“Which one is –“ Pansy’s question was never finished as she caught sight of Harry’s small and embarrassed wave. “You don’t mean that you’re–“ she started in disbelief. She paused. Collecting herself, she stuck out her hand. “I’m Pansy, as you know. Pansy Parkinson.”

Harry shook it as Ron snorted, “Are all the other purebloods this stuck-up?”

Harry didn’t say anything, but he did agree. He smiled to himself as he remembered how Draco had introduced himself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pansy narrowed her eyes at Ron. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Anyway,” she turned back to Harry, “did you know that Draco went on and on about you to me for weeks after meeting you in Diagon Alley? I believe your first conversation took place in Madam Malkin? He said that your name was Harry, but he never thought to inform me that you were the Harry Potter! I can see what he meant by shy, but not in the annoying way and oh, Draco, you were right, he really does have the most hazel eyes to ever exist. In fact, I can almost see them sparkle golden in the light, just like you said they would.”

Draco covered Pansy’s mouth before she could say anything else. Harry got the feeling that Pansy had been purposefully trying to embarrass Draco as payback for ditching her and the other two boys.

“Hurry up, into the boats!”

They all whirled around to see Hagrid and the other first-years waiting impatiently, all of them already in their own boats. Harry, Ron, Draco and Pansy clambered into the only empty boat left, leaving Crabbe and Goyle to hop in with Neville and Hermione. Harry grimaced sympathetically.

“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid. “Right then – FORWARD!”

Harry clutched the side of his boat as they suddenly jolted forward, and before he knew it, they were gliding across the lake.

“Right,” Pansy said, drawing the attention back to her. “I already know Draco and Harry, now who are you?” she asked Ron.

“Ron Weasley,” he replied.

Pansy’s face was one of disgust as she opened her mouth to speak. Quickly, Draco cut in. “He’s all right, you know, for a Weasley.” He sent a meaningful nod towards Harry and Pansy followed with her eyes.

“Oh. That’s right. Halfblood, forgot.” Pansy settled back down. Ron frowned at this.

“What have you got against halfbloods?” he challenged. Harry desperately wished that whenever he met someone knew, his friends didn’t have to try and pick a fight.

“Sorry, but what do you mean by halfblood and pureblood?” Harry asked. It didn’t seem to be the right thing to say, as Ron’s scowl grew.

“Yeah, go on, tell Harry Potter, the most famous person you’ll ever set your eyes on, a halfblood, about it.”

Draco and Pansy shifted uncomfortably in their seats. “Look, I’m sure Pansy didn’t mean anything about, and besides, it’s not like most purebloods have a choice in their views. Most of the time it’s their parents and –“

“So are you saying you’re one of them too?” Ron seethed. He then placed a protective arm around Harry.

“No, no, of course not, it’s just –“

“Your father is? I know.” Seeing Draco’s pleading face, Ron sighed. “Fine. You haven’t said anything too insulting so far. However, don’t expect me to be all chummy with her.” He jerked his head in the direction of Pansy.

“Hey! Look, I’m sorry, okay? It’s just my mother and father are always telling me horrible things about the Weasleys and –“ she cut herself off. “Never mind. I’m sure your family isn’t too bad. This has gone off to a bad start. Let’s talk about something else. I heard there’s a giant squid in this lake.”

As soon as she said this, they heard a great splash. It appeared that the boat with Neville, Hermione, Crabbe and Goyle had capsized. Harry had a good idea on what – or rather, who – was responsible for this. Hagrid called the boats to a stop and steered his as close as he could get to the upturned boat. He flipped it over and not a second later, a humongous tentacle burst through the water and dumped the sopping lot onto the boat. Hagrid took off his coat and gave it to them, before the boats started moving again.

All collectively coming to the wordless agreement that the argument was over, Pansy, Draco, Ron and Harry started talking about their excitement of what was to come. The purebloods described to Harry all they knew of Hogwarts, Ron pitching on secret passageways Fred and George had told him about, Pansy gossiping away about their future classmates and the ghosts, and Draco giving them information on the teachers and houses.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me, how are we sorted?” Harry asked.

“Fred and George told me we have to battle a troll,” Ron squeaked out in a small voice. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

Harry felt himself go pale. He didn’t even know any magic yet! How was he supposed to battle a troll?! Draco and Pansy’s laughter broke into his panic-filled haze.

“They did, did they?” Draco snorted. “Well, I guess the magical creatures department shouldn’t be around any more, because apparently first-years are all now expected to fight them! Pansy, Pansy, can you believe?” The girl was laughing too hard to respond. Catching the other two’s confused expressions, Draco explained. “Don’t worry Weasley, Potter, you’re not expected to fight a troll. I’m pretty sure neither are seventh-years, for heaven’s sake! All you have to do is put on the Sorting Hat. It – it’s, to put it simply, a magical hat that can read your mind. It looks at your traits and decides which house you belong in.”

Harry and Ron breathed out in relief. In hindsight, it was rather stupid to believe that the school would put a bunch of eleven-year-olds in danger.

–

Hagrid had led them to a great oaken door. It had swung open to reveal a stern-looking witch in emerald-green robes. She thanked Hagrid and then led the bunch of small first-years inside, showing them the huge Entrance Hall. The stone walls were lined with flaming torches and the ceiling was so high Harry thought you must have been able to fit twenty Hagrids all standing on top of each other and they would still have room for more.

Currently, they were in an empty chamber coming off the Hall. On the way, Harry had heard the undecipherable chatter of what must have been the rest of the students.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall, in a rather terse, uncomforting voice. She then explained the whole house deal, which, of course, Harry, Draco, Pansy and Ron already knew. There were a few stern warnings about points, which Harry didn’t know, but overall, it was nothing he hadn’t heard before. (Except, maybe this speech was more formal and drawn out. And more frightening. Harry preferred it when his friends were explaining it.)

“I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly,” Professor McGonagall finished.

Harry looked around and saw that most of the first-years seemed to share the same thought he had had a few moments ago. There wasn’t a lot of talking. Everyone else looked too nervous to utter a word – excluding Hermione Granger. She was muttering quickly under her breath. Neville was beside her, doing his very best to listen and take notes. Harry figured the girl was revising spells. They both looked deathly pale.

Feeling bad, Harry broke away from his three friends to talk to them.

Hermione saw him first. “Hold still,” she ordered. She raised her wand, aiming right at Harry’s face. Before he had time to react, perhaps runaway, she said clearly, “Oculus reparo.” In an instant, Harry noticed the difference. The cracks that had previously just been a part of his world disappeared from his glasses. The broken bit that rested on his nose and was taped together was as good as new.

“Thanks!” Harry blinked and admired his glasses, astonished.

“No problem. Besides, I needed to practice. Who knows what kind of test we’ll be expected to take in there? I have to be prepared.”

“About that,” Harry said, “you don’t need to know any magic yet.” At this, Neville relaxed, although Hermione still looked unsure.

“Are you certain?” she asked.

“Yes, well, Draco and Pansy told me. You only have to put on the Sorting Hat. It can, er, read your mind, I guess. Basically, it finds out all your traits and decides which house would suit you best.”

Mollified, Hermione and Neville thanked him furiously, but Harry just waved them off, saying it was no problem. He then hurried back over to where his friends were watching.

“That was rather kind of you,” Pansy noted.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought to have done that,” Ron added.

“Honestly, Potter. You’re such a Hufflepuff!” Draco exclaimed. None of those things were said in a mean way, but Harry still felt he had to defend himself.

“I was only doing the right thing!” Harry protested. It was true. He just wanted to help them out. Neville and Hermione deserved that, at the very least, especially after everything that had happened. They got dumped in freezing lake water on their first day at Hogwarts! Surely they had suffered enough.

“We know,” Draco chuckled fondly.

At that moment, several first-years started screaming. Everyone swung around to see numerous transparent figures gliding in and out of the walls and across the room. Ghosts, Harry realised, just as one – who appeared to be in an argument with another – passed through him. Harry gasped. It was like having a cold shower, except for your insides, if that made sense.

“- gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not even really a ghost – I say, what are you all doing here?” the ghost asked. Nobody answered. Harry was still trying to get over the strange feeling of something passing through him.

“New students!” exclaimed the ghost’s companion. “About to be sorted, I suppose?” A few people nodded. “Hope to see you in Hufflepuff! My old house, you know.” The ghosts then started to drift through the walls and into the Great Hall.

“Move along now,” shooed Professor McGonagall, who had just come back. “The Sorting Ceremony is about to start.”

The remaining few ghosts were gone in an instant. They all appeared to have a certain level of respect for the elderly witch, and Harry could see why. At McGonagall’s demand, the first-years all got into a line and shuffled into the Great Hall.

Harry looked around and gasped along with the others. The Great Hall was even bigger than the Entrance Hall! They may not have been able to determine the height of the last Hall’s ceiling, but this one had no end whatsoever, as it opened up onto the night sky above.

At least, that’s what Harry (and probably many others) thought before Hermione whispered, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History.”

The first-years attention was drawn back to Professor McGonagall as she silently placed a stool at the front of the Hall – and all its inhabitants. On top of this stool, she placed a ragged, pointed hat, which looked very out of place with the general elegance surrounding Hogwarts.

Harry certainly didn’t want that hat anywhere near his head, and, after a quick glance behind him to where Draco, Pansy and Ron were standing, his friends looked like they agreed. It didn’t even look that special – in fact, it was rather dirty and frayed. He briefly wondered why the hall of students was silent, because surely this hat didn’t do anything too spectacular, when a rip near the brim opened.

The hat began to sing. After its song, Harry concluded two things:

First, Draco was right about the reading minds thing, if “there’s nothing hidden in your head, the Sorting Hat can’t see,” was to be believed and second, that Hufflepuff and Gryffindor didn’t appear to be as bad as the blond had made them out to be.

Once the applause had died down, Professor McGonagall stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she announced. “Abbott, Hannah!”

While a small girl with pigtails stumbled out of the line of first-years and put on the hat, Harry turned to his friends.

“I bet you a Sickle that she gets sorted into Hufflepuff,” Draco whispered to Pansy.

“Hey, that’s so unfair, I was going to say –“ Pansy’s protest was cut off by the Sorting Hat shouting out “Hufflepuff!”

Draco smugly held out his hand. Pansy rolled her eyes and fished around in her robes before pulling out a silver coin. “Whatever,” she muttered.

“Harry!” Draco exclaimed, catching his eye. “Do you want to take a bet?” The boy was grinning – a stark contrast to how Harry and Ron looked. Realising this, Draco rolled his eyes. “Oh, chin up. It’ll be fine. The only thing you have to worry about is a hatstall.”

“A what?!” both redheads cried.

“A hatstall. It’s what wizards call a new student who takes longer than five minutes to be sorted. They’re quite rare, so there’s no point agonising over it.” This information didn’t help either of them. “Look, Harry, just be glad you won’t be one of the last ones sorted, like Weasley over here.”

“Hey!”

“Shush, Ron. It’ll be my turn soon and you already have brothers to console you,” Draco said. “Potter, however, doesn’t.” Ron and Draco then started arguing, and Harry got distracted by the Sorting once more. He was glad he looked over when he did, because it was Hermione’s turn now.

When she sat down on the stool, Harry gave her a small, reassuring smile. She returned it just before the hat covered her eyes.

A few minutes later, the Sorting Hat declared her to be a Gryffindor. Ron groaned.

“No offense, Harry, but I’d rather not have her in what is likely to be my house,” he explained once he saw Harry’s disapproving expression.

A couple more sortings passed, and then it was Neville’s turn. Harry grimaced sympathetically when the boy tripped over his own feet on his way to the stool. Harry felt even sorrier for Neville when he ran off after being sorted into Gryffindor still wearing the hat.

The sortings flew by after him. Soon, “MacDougal, Morag,” was called and Harry immediately felt Draco tense up ever-so-slightly. It would be the blond boy’s turn next, so Harry understood his apparent nervousness.

However, when “Malfoy, Draco,” was finally called, it was like a switch had been flicked. Now that the school’s eyes were on him, he straightened and confidently strode up. Harry wondered how he could possibly look so composed. He watched with interest as the Sorting Hat was placed on Draco’s head and – no, it had barely even touched a single hair when it screamed, “Slytherin!” out to the Great Hall.

Harry clapped with pride. Draco shot him a grin as he went to join Crabbe and Goyle.

Then Pansy’s turn came, but not even ten seconds later, and she was sorted into Slytherin too. Harry wished desperately to be in Slytherin, or maybe Gryffindor with Hermione, Neville and (probably) Ron. His stomach twisted as the P’s were flying by, because surely it couldn’t be long now and then –

“Potter, Harry.”

He stepped forward. His anxiety only worsened when he heard the sudden silence. It didn’t last for long, as soon whispers were being passed not-so-secretly. All of them went a little something like:

“Potter, did she say?”

“The Harry Potter?”

The Sorting Hat was soon dropped over his eyes, but not before he saw almost every student in the Hall craning to get a good look. Some were even standing up.

“Hmm.” Harry jumped slightly when he heard a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness yes,” Harry doubted this, “and a thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting… So where shall I put you?”

Harry knew that the Sorting Hat was asking this rhetorically, but he couldn’t help but to think desperately, ‘Slytherin, please. Or Gryffindor. Slytherin or Gryffindor, Slytherin or Gryffindor.’

“Yes, yes, I’m trying to choose between the two,” the Hat said. After a moment of deliberation, it spoke again. “You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that…”

‘Slytherin, then. Please.’

“Oh, I had already decided to put you in there, don’t worry. I merely wanted to make sure.” Not a second later, and the Sorting Hat held true to what it had said, as it had announced to a stunned Hall, “Slytherin!”

#harry potter #drarry #draco malfoy #harry potter fic #drarry fic #harry potter au #rhahmd #my works

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